O’Connor looking to bridge 14-year gap between club titles

NICC WOMEN’S FINAL

St. Mary’s Castleisland v Killester Dublin

IT’S the biggest weekend of the year in the basketball calendar and St. Mary’s senior ladies will be part of it as they contest the NICC title. Under the guidance of coach Liam Culloty, the squad, who are captained by Aoife Nolan, have already overcome Templeogue in the preliminary round at home, Portlaoise Panthers in the quarter final away and Maree in the semi-final in Neptune stadium. This competition is for club teams who do not play in the national league.

The club senior women’s team have previously won the All Ireland club competition in 2004, Eileen O’Connor was part of this squad and will be lining out with St. Mary’s again next weekend. Many of the players in this current team were also part of the team who won the National league with Tommy Dom O’Connor at the helm in 2012.

Since the All Ireland club win in 2004 St. Mary’s have enjoyed success at local and national level with both the men’s and women’s teams winning several Southern conference titles. The men’s club won the National League and Cup in 2009/10 and went on to win the league again in 2011.

The women had their national league win in 2012. The U-18 girls won the national cup in 2008/09 and the U-18 men were winners in 2009/10. There have been national club wins at U-14 and U-16 level and our U-16 girls won the Tomas Sola International tournament in Barcelona last year.

The St. Mary’s ladies will face Killester in the NICC final in the National arena on Sunday at 12 noon and will be taking nothing for granted given that the Dublin club have a wealth of experience at the highest level. Killester also boast two former Tralee Imperial players, Maeve Barry and Laura Hoffman, however, Liam Culloty will have a good knowledge of how take these girls on as he would have previously coached both.