BAXTER and Long Island are almost assured of a home semi-final after comfortably winning their round eight matches in MPCA Provincial cricket on Saturday.

Baxter moved to 96 points on the table and Long Island leapt to second on 84.

Crib Point (third, 72 points) would need to do something drastically wrong to be ousted from the top four. The real interest over the next six weeks will be the battle for fourth.

Mt Martha holds that place on 56 and Ballam Park, Peninsula Old Boys and Mornington are just half a game behind on 48.

Heatherhill (36) looks unlikely to challenge for a top four place after being beaten on Saturday by Crib Point.

While there will be plenty of interest in the final three rounds regarding the top four, there is also a battle for relegation with Moorooduc, Somerville, Sorrento and Frankston YCW all on 24 (two wins).

The Ducs have a healthy percentage of 1.15, the Eagles (0.72) and Sorras (0.71) are fractionally separated and the Stonecats (0.44) hold up the rest of the table.

On Saturday, Ballam Park shot into contention with a strong performance against Moorooduc.

Resuming on 1-96 and chasing 146, the Knights had little trouble, finishing on 282. Brad Denny went agonisingly close to a century, out for 99 after starting the day on 61.

Nick Gurry backed up a solid bowling performance (2-41) with a healthy 64.

POB made tough work of getting the 146 needed for victory against Mornington.

Wade Pelzer made 41 and Dylan O'Malley 31 to help steer their side to 8-178. Matthew Harper with 2-37 was the pick of the bowlers.

Defending 7-372, Baxter bowled Frankston YCW out for 173, Marc Uccello snaring 4-65, Jedd Sutton 2-1 and Adrian Mack 2-31.

Heatherhill was unable to chase down the 218 set by Crib Point and was bowled out for 154.

Luke Herrington (3-40) and Glen Barclay (2-42) were key performers for the Pies and John Hille jnr top-scored for the Hills with 42.

Defending 9-219, Long Island bowled out Mt Martha with Paul Hartle again on fire taking 6-37, supported by Scott Phillips with 3-42. Rhys Whitling top-scored for the Reds, almost hitting half his team's score with 71.

Somerville went for the jugular against Sorrento but failed in its attempt to get an outright victory.

After bowling out the Sorras for 92, the Eagles quickly raced to 4-216 after resuming on 4-120.

Shabib Rashid (58) and Jack Kennedy (53) were the not out batsmen for the Eagles and James McDonald hit a half century on day one.

The Sorras were 3-133 in their second innings.