Grange star at Regional finals
SLIGO Regional Sports Centre played host to the North West Regional C U16 and U19 Boys Basketball finals recently. Grange Post Primary school had teams competing in both finals. First up was the U16 final, which was contested by St. Josephs from Foxford and Grange. From the off Grange established an early lead in the first 2 minutes leading 7-6 after scores from Miguel Manzo and Josh Fallon. As the quarter continued, the Mayo outfit started to get more of a grip of the game with some excellent shooting from their star man Adam Battle. Grange failed to score again in the quarter leaving it 7-12 in favour of St. Josephs.
In the second quarter, Grange bought in Daniel O’Connor and changed up the defensive set. This paid huge dividends with Daniel and Riain Conaty making opportunities very scarce with some great rebounds and positional play. On the attacking side of the ball, Michael Langan and Mark Heraghty were causing havoc with their movement and ball handling, which created 3 baskets for Riain Conaty and a further 2 from Michael and captian Josh. Most impressively in this half, Grange held the Foxford boys to 0 points, leaving them 17-12 up.
The third quarter saw both teams trading baskets with Langan getting 3 more as well as one a piece from Conaty and Manzo. However, the impressive Adam Battle kept the Mayo boys in the game with some excellent long range shooting and brought them back to within 3 points before the final quarter. The final quarter was a cagey affair with tiredness setting in and mistakes coming from both sides. Two baskets from O’Connor and Conaty sealed the victory for the Grange boys who held on for a one point win with the game finishing 32-31.
The U19 final got underway shortly after with the lads from Grange facing a monumental task against last year’s second place All-Ireland finalists St. Brendan’s from Belmullet. The first quarter was the undoing of the North Sligo side with Grange scoring once through captain, Diarmuid Byrne. They trailed 18-2 after the first quarter. A change in system saw the lads get a hold of the more physical Belmullet lads and they lost the second quarter by just a mere point, with 6 baskets coming from skipper Byrne and one each from Tola Carway and Joseph Keaney. However, the gap was still huge from the first quarter onslaught from Belmullet. Grange drew the final 2 quarters of the game with the majority of scores coming from Diarmuid Byrne. Noel Bourke and Blaine Waters performed exceptionally well under the basket in defence and attack winning plenty of rebounds and Waters getting a score of his own too. Ball carriers Jack Courtney, Lee Cummins and Tola Carway were excellent in the final 3 quarters. Joseph Keaney was a thorn in the St. Brendan’s side all game and his work rate was second to none. Off the bench, Aaron Kenny made some big blocks under his own net to keep the west Mayo lads out. Replacements Michael Gillen, Killian McElroy and Adam Hogan performed admirably when called upon. However, the better team on the day took home the cup. It is not the end of the road for this group of lads. From here, they progress to the All-Ireland Playoffs in the New Year along with their U16 team. Coach Aaron O’Donnellsaid: “This was a massive achievement for such a small school. We have just over 100 boys in total in our school so to be competing in both finals here today is an amazing achievement alone and to take the cup home in the U16 is brilliant. A huge thank you must go to Chris Donaghy who has helped coach these lads this year as well as Kieran Breslin, Javi Diaz and Kevin all of whom have contributed in a major way to basketball in our school over the years. I feel sorry for the senior lads as it is this group who have driven the culture and standards of basketball in this school for the last 5/6 years, but they will learn from this and be a better team for it come the All-Irelands in January. They can also take a lot of credit for the Junior lads victory as they drive the standards weekly at training and put the marker down for the younger lads. So all in all it was a great day for our school and community and we will move to the next phase of the competition with plenty of confidence and expectations,” he added.