Bench players bring much-needed Spark

CAVAN EAGLES DROGHEDA SPARKS 28 25

DROGHEDA Sparks put up a great fight in this North East Under-16 League clash at the weekend but came up just short away to Eagles.

The hosts started the match with a slightly better league record than Sparks, although earlier in the season the Drogheda team had easily seen off the Cavan girls’ challenge in Drogheda.

It was a different story this time around and Sparks never led at any stage of the game and will rue some easy, uncontested scores conceded to the Eagles team who were difficult to break down.

The introduction of Gretta McEvoy and Ome Esajabor for Sparks seemed to be key to their resurgence after earlier struggling against the tall Eagles defence.

Esajabor in particular gave Sparks the presence they needed under both baskets and she led the team in rebounding.

Ciara Ni Criosta was perfect from the free throw line and made all eight of her shots, while Kate Kelly was relentless in trying to get Sparks on a scoring run.

It was in fact the free throws which kept Sparks in the game as the outside shooting was failing them. Sparks worked tirelessly on defense, but it wasn’t to be their day on the scoring front as they spurned several opportunities.

Nevertheless, they could take some comfort from fighting back from a nine-point deficit to trail by just three at the finish.

The result means Sparks will almost certainly not feature in the top-four competition. However, they do have two remaining matches, both away from home, beginning next Sunday when they take on Cavan Lakers in Cavan town (tip-off 1.15pm).