All-Ireland honours
Memorable weekend for young guns
IT WAS a memorable weekend for the juvenile handball players from county Wexford as a fantastic four All-Ireland titles were collected by some of the brightest up and coming stars in purple and gold for a long time.
Wexford has always been a proud county when it comes to big alley handball, and last weekend was proof that there is some fantastic talent making the breakthrough at national level.
The man who literally got the ball rolling on Friday night was Josh Kavanagh in the final of the Under-14 singles. His opponent was Eoghan McGinnity from Monaghan and it was held in the home court of the Farney county lad.
Josh played superb handball in winning the title. A mixture of skill, fitness and determination brought him a 15-7, 15-11 victory.
Josh’s fine win followed only six days after his brother, Daniel, captured the All-Ireland Minor doubles title with Anthony Butler, and certainly the Kavanagh brothers may in the future prove to be a very capable doubles combination at adult level.
On Sunday the Under-15 grade provided three more titles. Cliodhna O’Connell from Coolgreany was first into action in Kingscourt, Co. Cavan, for the Under-15 singles final versus Mayo’s Claire Reynolds.
It was a powerful showing by O’Connell as she cruised to a 155, 15-4, following in the footsteps of many ladies from the Gorey District club who have collected gold medals at national level.
Hot on the heels of that win, the Under-15 doubles title was down for decision and it served up another fantastic result for the Model county over Mayo. In a fantastic final, Leanne Boland and Ciara Parnell had to pull out all the serves they could find.
They picked some great balls and hit the most winners to squeeze over the line on a 15-11, 15-13 scoreline against the very good Mayo pairing of Heather Burke and Cuileann Burke.
The final quarter of the fantastic four again came in the Under-15 grade, this time in the boys’ competition as the doubles pairing of Josh McMahon and Cian Kehoe waltzed to the title.
They beat Cavan duo Diego Di Folco and Niall McMahon in their home county in the famous court of Kingscourt. It was an utterly dominant display by the Wexford duo and they coasted to a 15-3, 15-4 win.
A number of Wexford players boarded a plane to Los Angeles on Sunday afternoon for the U.S. Open. Among the travelling party were Daniel Kavanagh, Josh Kavanagh and Mark Doyle, and we wish all the players the very best.
Another All-Ireland success in the big court was celebrated in Talbot’s Inch on Sunday as Kilmyshall’s Keith Armstrong lined out in the colours of Maynooth University to capture the open singles title in the 60 x 30 inter-varsity.
His victories to get to the final included quarter-final and semi-final wins over University of Limerick players Michael Hedigan and Daniel Relihan to set up a final against Ryan Mullan from Queens University. Armstrong played really well and defeated Mullan 21-9, 2114 to claim the top honour of third level 60 x 30 handball.