Melbourne Stars captain Cameron White says that four consecutive semi-final losses in the Big Bash League is not acceptable.

After again performing strongly in the qualifying games of the domestic Twenty20 competition, the Stars failed to qualify for the final.

They were beaten by the defending champions, the Perth Scorchers, by 18 runs at the WACA Ground on Sunday Night. Melbourne failed to chase down a humble target of 145 for victory.

The Scorchers will contest their fourth consecutive Big Bash League final.

The Stars will again head back to the drawing board and attempt to go one better in BBL05.

"We can't get to this stage four times in a row and front up and do the same stuff again next year," a frustrated White said after the loss.

"It's clearly disappointing.

"It's frustrating because when this team loses, we know we haven't played our best. If we do play our best, like you have seen over the last four years, we win more than we lose.

"It's always frustrating when you don't play as well as you can."

Prior to Sunday night, the Stars had been in red-hot form, winning five consecutive games after losing the first three of this season.

During the week they chased down the Scorchers 2-179 at the MCG in the final qualifying game.

On Sunday they were bowled out for 126.

Luke Wright and Kevin Pietersen top-scored with 31 runs apiece, but seven Stars batsmen failed to reach double figures.

The innings took Pietersen's season tally to 293 at an average of 41.86 runs, with a strike rate of 122.59. He scored three of the Stars five half centuries recorded for the series. White and Glenn Maxwell scored the other two, while Peter Handscomb belted a match-winning (and unbeaten) 103 runs against the Scorchers in that last qualifying fixture at the MCG.

White, who was the next best Star batsman by Pietersen, with 175 runs at an average if 19, said the former England Test captain had been outstanding in his debut BBL season.

"We couldn't have asked for much more from Kev, on and off the field," he said.

"I think he was brilliant for our young players; and clearly he was out best batter by a country mile as well.

"He bought great confidence and class to the team."