With almost all his experienced players out with serious injuries the situation worsened within three minutes when Grant McNicoll limped off.
Sixteen minutes later the mean striker Kevin Haynes was sent off for a two footed tackle and both Stephen Noble and Stewart Fraser were booked.
When Kevin McLeish, one of six former Berwick players in the Stenny line-up, supplied a perfect free-kick cross for John Baird to head home Rangers must have feared the worst.
In the 2nd half however, they stormed forward with great courage and enthusiasm. Willy McCulloch made two fine saves from David Greenhill and Sean Paliczka while the impressive Ryan McCallum was injured.
Stenhousemuir was a very strong squad, never hit top form, but they did exert spells of strong pressure. During one of them Jordan Smith cleared a Brian McLaughlin effort off the line. Keeper Gary O'Connor had a string of great saves from Baird, Gareth Hutchinson and Paul Murphy. Late on he foiled Hutchinson again with a flying full length dive.
Tough times lie ahead for Berwick as they wait for key players to recover from injuries, but there was much to admire from their youngsters.
Jordan Smith, Robbie Manson, McCallum and Tom Britton did particularly well and showed great tenacity.