Sidmouth’s Premier Division campaign in the Tolchards Devon Cricket League is in danger of fizzling out, as they slumped to a painful 107-run defeat at high-flying Heathcoat.

Codi Yusuf, Tom Simmons and Byron Knowls all struck early for Sidmouth and the hosts were in mild strife on 44/3 but a partnership of 102 between Jack Dart (63) and skipper Pete Randerson (50) settled the Heathcoat innings.

Sammy Broomhead added an entertaining 60, as Sidmouth were set a challenging target of 297. The reply stuttered into life with steady scores of 30 from Jamie Baird and a 23 by captain Luke Bess.

Unfortunately, the loss of three wickets for no score took Sidmouth from 70/3 to 70/6. Henry Armstrong put up a fight with his unbeaten 69 but could not prevent his side from being bowled out for 188.

Sidmouth travel to Paignton for a big game on Saturday and need a win to ensure they are not sucked into a relegation scrap.

There was some club revenge, however, as Sidmouth 2nds cemented top spot in C Division East with a two-wicket win over Heathcoat 2nds. Tom Hodgson took 3/64 with the ball and Charles Brock (73) top scored with the bat.

In the same division, Rhys Norman produced a blistering spell of three wickets for 19 runs as Ottery St Mary defeated Exmouth 2nds by seven wickets. After limiting their hosts to 172, unbeaten knocks of 73 from Jonathan Triner and 71 from Tom Jeacock steered Ottery to a comfortable victory.

Despite an excellent start at home to Cullompton 2nds in F Division East, Sidbury slipped to a three-wicket defeat.

The top three of Ed Chester (54), Alex Paget (27) and Mark Bishop (48) took Sidbury to 100/2 but the middle order failed to spark and a total of 196/9 was a little below par after such a solid opening.

Cullompton, in contrast, lacked big scores in their reply but had decent contributions all down the order and reached their target in 39 overs. Sidbury travel to Sampford Peverell & Tiverton 2nds on Saturday.