Maree prove too strong for Team Tom McCarthy’s

TEAM Tom McCarthy’s suffered a loss on the road this weekend when their opponents, Maree, proved to be by far the stronger side. The Castleisland side had expected it to be a game which would challenge them as the Galway side have some high profile players and the Kerry side were missing some key players on the day in Deirdre Geaney and Aoife Nolan. Nolan has recently had ankle surgery and is expected to be out for some time.

A spread of scores from Maree saw them take the first quarter 29 points to 11. Team Tom McCarthy’s Denise Dunlea hit two threes and scores came in from Lorraine Scanlon and Cliona Coffey but the accuracy of Maree in this opening quarter set them up for the remainder of the game.

The second period was more evenly matched and the St. Mary’s side stepped up their performance hitting 10 points to their opponents 12. The third and fourth were no different, Maree had the edge but by just five points in each of the quarters however the Castleisland girls never managed to close that gap created in the opening 10 minutes.

Coach Liam Culloty said: “It was a really tough game for us. Maree started great and shot extremely well, we battled hard throughout the game and had some good runs but Maree always had that cushion from the opening quarter. We will take lessons away from the defeat and as we have no game until November.

We will work hard in training over the next few weeks to improve. Three of our first four games are away so in a way that’s good as it shows us the standard we need to reach against the best teams at this level.”

Culloty also noted some positives from the game stating “our young players Sarah O’Sullivan, Orla White and Labhaoise Wamsley all made great contributions at different stages of the game”.