After suffering a loss to North Otago in the final round in Oamaru on Saturday, the favoured St Clair men's pennant team has dropped to fourth place and will play no further part in the series this year.
St Clair has dominated the local series in recent years, with the club's two teams finishing first and second two years ago.
This year, St Clair was held to a draw by both Otago A and Otago B, and the loss to North Otago on Saturday left the team in fourth place with eight points and 18.5 games.
Otago A finished in top place and now awaits a home final at Balmacewen on June 12.
Meanwhile, second-placed Taieri will host North Otago next Saturday to decide the other finalist.
Otago A had little trouble in beating Chisholm Park 5-1 while Taieri downed Otago B 4.5-1.5 although four of the six games finished on the final green.
St Clair paid the price of going into the final round without several key players.
Brent McEwan, Chris Snow, Tony Giles and Greg Johnson were all missing from the line-up on Saturday.
The North Otago tail of Dion Ratahi, Paul Velenski and Roger Gilchrist all notched good wins while for St Clair No 2 Stephen Hitchcox and No 3 Andrew Hobbs won in style.
This left the battle of the No 1 players to decide the outcome and Michael Ormandy (Oamaru) and Michael Minty (St Clair) were all square with three holes to play.
A win by Minty would have given St Clair another point and the team would have made the play-offs with a superior game tally.
But the pair halved the final three holes in pars to give the Oamaru team three wins and a-half.
