BARNSLEY Woolley Miners are delighted with three league wins in a row but say: ‘we won’t settle for staying up.’
After bowling Shiregreen out for 98, the Shaw Laners are now ninth – 15 points clear of the bottom two with ten games left.
They had been bottom after nine matches, having hoped to compete for the title this season.
Captain Liam Johnson said: “We’re delighted to win three in three.
“When we knew we were in a dogfight, we targeted these three games as crucial and we’re over the moon to win them all with three really commanding performances as well.
“We were never at panic stations because we knew would come good.
“We’ve beaten York and Wakefield this season so, now we’ve hit form, we can beat anyone. It does feel like we’ve turned a corner.
“We can’t take our foot off the gas and we won’t settle for staying up.
“If you put five or six wins together in this league suddenly you are right up there. But we know we can’t afford another bad run.
“Because of the way the league is, every team has players who can win a game so we can’t sit here and say we’re going to win every game and go for the title. We just want to get as high as we can and build momentum for next year.
“We had hopes of better at the start of the season but you play the hand you’ve been dealt.
“We had a lot of injuries and players out of form. We had bad luck with rained off games.
“We’ve shown character to turn it around and now we want to maintain it.”
Oliver Jackson took five for 20 then Barnsley recovered from 33 for five to win with no further loss thanks to Ali Jahangir’s 44 not out.
Johnson said: “It was a good performance. It was a tough wicket and they have bowlers who can hurt you.
“We found a way to win.
“We won the toss and put them in.
“We didn’t want them creeping to 150 which would be a tough chase on a dodgy wicket. We dropped their overseas early who is the highest run-scorer in the league, but we got him not long after then we were in control.
“When Oliver gets a wicket in his favour, he is unplayable.
“He’s not had the start to the season he wanted.
“He’s probably not been at 100 per cent due to an injury but he’s stepped up when we needed him to
“We were in trouble with the bat but needed to really dig in and hang around.
“Ali Jahangir and Stevie Walters had a brilliant partnership.
“It was the complete opposite way to win to last week when we bashed it about at Treeton. It’s a good sign we can win in different ways.”
Barnsley were due to play Cawthorne in the K3 Dental Cup quarter-final on Sunday but it was called off due to the wet weather.
Meanwhile, Pakistan international Danish Aziz scored his first hundred for Cawthorne but they lost by a wicket at home to Cleethorpes.
Aziz hit 110 off 109 balls with nine fours and eight sixes in Cawthorne’s 182 then Amir Shahzad took three wickets.
Bottom club Elsecar were bowled out for 125 chasing 198 against Wakefield Thornes.
Cawthorne and Elsecar face each other on Saturday.
Cawthorne, who have lost their last five league games, are third-bottom and ten points clear of Elsecar who could overtake them.
