Inspired Lamb leads Marist to a Classic triumph in Belfast
MARIST College became the first champions at this year’s Basketball Hall of Fame Classic at the SSE Arena in Belfast as they eased to a 70-53 win over LIU Brooklyn in the Samson bracket Championship game.
Isaiah Lamb led the Red Foxes with eight rebounds and added 12 points, going five for eight, in the dominant and fully deserved win.
The game was over by the half with Marist up by 37-20, largely due to a stunning run where they put up 27 unanswered points as their attack, led by 14 points from Brian Parker, and defence both clicked.
After the break, LIU had no response as the Red Foxes extended their lead to 26 points in the first 2:40 of the second half, with the Blackbirds left chasing shadows.
Although LIU did pull it back towards the end of the game, with Craig Owens Jr adding 10 points, it was nowhere near enough and at the final buzzer the celebrations began for the delighted Marist boys.
In the Goliath bracket, the University at Buffalo Bulls and the University of San Francisco Dons will meet in today’s Championship game.
The Bulls defeated the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee 96-77 in the opening game of the day, with San Francisco winning out 76-58 over the Stephen F Austin State University Lumberjacks.
Jeremy Harris was the star for Buffalo with 21 points and four assists as the Bulls held off a second-half Milwaukee comeback to win the semi-final.
Meanwhile, Jordan Ratinho shot 19 points and Frankie Ferrari added nine assists as San Francisco made light work of SFA, who couldn’t back up an 18-point performance from Kevon Harris.
In the Samson bracket consolation game, James Foye hit 20 points with five rebounds and four assists as Dartmouth Big Green went home with the win, defeating the University at Albany Great Danes 91-77.
In today’s action, the Goliath Championship game will tip-off at 3.30pm, with the consolation game between Milwaukee and SFA the prelude at 1pm. “AH, there’s nothing hi. A few factories up there in the Industrial Estate. Apart from that, you have the few pubs and shops and that’s it. Things just seem to be closing down every few months. It’s getting worse instead of getting better.”
A familiar refrain, coming out of rural communities all over Ireland. This is the time of year that the problems in the marginalised villages, towns and parishes are aired through the prism of joyous sporting occasions.
This time, it’s Odhrán MacNiallais and Gaoth Dobhair, but it could be so many other clubs up and down the country.
Work is on the wane. The crisp factory shut down a couple of years back and took the Seaview Hotel with it around the same time. The three post offices over the sprawling parish became two only last month.
But still, the note of hope. “The football is all everyone is talking about. We are all getting a great buzz out of it,” says MacNiallais.
“It’s great that we have something, especially over the winter, it gives people something to do at the weekend, something to look forward to.”
Tomorrow the Donegal coastal club go back to the scene of their finest day in over four decades in beating Crossmaglen in the Ulster club semi-final, back to Healy Park. After winning their first Donegal title in 12 years, they are planning an audacious smash and grab against the earnest men of Scotstown, who have been plugging away at this competition for years.
Given their electric performance, how they punished Crossmaglen for sticking to a traditional game and their sheer goal power in sinking four majors, it is easy to see why they are going in as strong favourites to lift the Seamus McFerran Cup.
It was only two summers ago the doubts were crippling Gaoth Dobhair players after a WE may have reached the twilight of 2018 but still the individual awards come tumbling the way of Monaghan goalkeeper Rory Beggan.
Tomorrow the 26-year-old custodian will be on the trail of yet another honour when he lines out with Scotstown against Gaoth Dobhair in the Ulster senior club championship final at Healy Park, Omagh having just collected what could be deemed an extremely tasty aperitif.
Beggan’s outstanding consistency between the posts has already seen him scoop a fourth successive Monaghan championship medal with Scotstown and a coveted All-Star award following a memorable term in his county’s colours. But rather than board the flight that took 12-point collapse in the county semi-final against Glenties.
“That was bottom-of-the-barrel stuff,” says MacNiallais.
“Coming off the pitch that day, and in the weeks after it, I was just thinking to myself I am never going to win anything with Gaoth Dobhair. It was a tough position to be in. You are thinking, ‘Jesus, is this what it is going to be like for the rest of my days?’”
If he sounds fatalistic, you sense he was tapping into the emotion of the time. Gaoth Dobhair had an enormously promising group coming through a revolutionary youth system.
It yielded several players who all came through at once including Dáire and Noaise ÓBáoill, Ciaran Gillespie, Michael Carroll and Cian Mulligan.
“These lads… nothing phases them,” said their 37-year-old full-forward Kevin Cassidy who hung on to his physique and appetite for the game over the last few years, knowing these players were coming onstream.
After the Crossmaglen game, MacNiallais’ manager Mervyn O’Donnell (inset) put a bit more flesh on those bones.
“A lot of these lads are so calm. You see them all landing with their headphones on and