Cumbria recovered from early wobbles to put themselves in a good position on the first day of their latest NCCA game.
Put in to bat by visitors Buckinghamshire, Cumbria lost Ben Davidson to the third ball of the day.
Michael Slack and teenage debutant Ewan Williams soon followed and at 29-3 the hosts were in trouble.
But the middle order rescued the situation, and two more Championship debutants steered the tail to a decent total of 297 in 88.4 overs.
Skipper Gary Pratt (46) started the fight-back and half centuries from Sam Dutton (56) and Paul Hindmarch (52) got them on track.
Wyll Stanway, on his home Furness track, marked his first Championship game with a good 24 while number ten bat James McGown, also in for his first Championship start, was unbeaten with 35 at the end.
He and Matthew Siddall (9) added 33 valuable runs for the last wicket.
Cumbria had five overs to make a breakthrough before the close and they got it as Slack had Eliot Callis caught by Matthew Sempill for two.
Buckinghamshire will resume on 5-1, still 292 adrift.
