St Pauls produce wonderful team display to topple Templeogue and reach League final
WOMEN’S NATIONAL LEAGUE DIVISION ONE SEMI-FINAL Utility Trust St Pauls 75 Templeogue 58
THE old adage says semi-finals are just for winning but one couldn’t but be impressed by the manner in which Utility Trust St Pauls went about their business in overcoming Templeogue and qualifying for the Women’s National League final where they will Swords Thunder in the National Basketball Arena in Tallaght.
Swords got the better of National Cup champions Limerick Celtics to set up what promises to be a mouth-watering battle, with the winners gaining promotion to the Super League.
This was the ultimate goal of the squad at the onset of the season and the way they outmanouvered Templeogue at a heaving Presentation Gym was clinical to say the least. Defensively they played with an intensity that locked up some of Templeogue leading lights for long periods while the ball movement and speed of their offence had the Metropolitans chasing shadows.
Limiting Lynn Tunnah and Madeleine Holland to just 34 points laid the foundation to the victory straight away , not to mention holding Alisha Lewis scoreless for the entire encounter. The spread of scoring for St Pauls was the key to success with Rheanne O’Shea, Sofia Paska and Khiarica Rasheed all chipping in with 16 points while Lorraine Scanlon, Lynn Jones and Meabh Barry all contributed handsomely.
Joint-captain Lynn Jones hailed her team afterwards. “It was a tough battle, the scoreline didn’t really reflect the closeness of the game. But we dug deep and the strength of our bench showed and got the job done together. We’re very grateful too to everyone who packed into the gym and you cannot underestimate how much that means to a team, that noise is worth an extra player to any team.”
The tone was set early in the game with Rasheed taking the ball to the basket to great effect and a strong rearguard action holding Templeogue to just three points in seven and a half minutes. All the while Lorraine Scanlon,
Denise Dunlea and Paska were finding their range. Lynn Tunnah stopped the rot for Templeogue but with Coach James Fleming cleverly rotating his line up, the likes of Leah McMahon and Lynn Jones were keeping the intensity high. Scanlon took delivery of a nice pass from Dunlea to finish neatly and Lauren Darcy replied from the free throw line, all that leaving St Pauls 19-7 to the good at quarters end.
Templeogue slowly came back into the game in the second quarter, thanks to a quick start from
Madeleine Holland followed by successive threes from Tunnah and Allanah O’Connell. It prompted a home time out and soon after American Alisha Lewis picked up her third foul. The introduction of Meabh Barry was followed by a Rheanne O’Shea three and Barry herself got on the scoresheet.
Aoife Whelan was finding her range for Templeogue but the rotation of the Pauls line up kept them at bay. Lorraine Scanlon, with a nice move under the basket, Barry and Paska pushed it out to 33-20 and now it was Templeogue’s turn to sit down and talk about it. It yielded immediate dividends as Whelan and Tunnah made it a seven-point game at half time, 35-28 in St Paul’s favour.
Holland broke free from the shackles early in the third quarter, her six points combined with another Tunnah three helping to reduce the deficit further to three, 42-39 midway through. Paska had netted with her trademark ten foot jumper while O’Shea hit again from beyond the arc.
Feeling Templeogue breath on their neck, St Pauls put their foot on the accelerator. Rasheed again cut to the basket, O’Shea hit a purple patch, netting six points on the spin, and Paska and Scanlon did great work inside to widen the third quarter advantage to ten, 55-45.
One feature of St Pauls this season has undoubtedly been their fitness, Kerry GAA legend Aidan O’Mahony has been overseeing that department, and it was very apparent from the last quarter that it was again coming to bear. O’Shea, Leah McMahon and Rasheed shot out of the blocks to make it a 16-point game, as Lewis was now fouled out for Templeogue. Even though Templeogue tried to arrest the slide with a timeout it had no effect. Dunlea, Paska and Lynn Jones, from a breakaway, and Paska again made it 68-48, in a period of play where the Dubliners simply had no answer.
Lauren Darcy and Tunnah were their only figures of defiance at this stage but Meabh Barry again popped up with four points to make it 72-52. With the game in hand Cliona Coffey, Mary Kate Smith and Liadh Tobin all saw court time but not before Lynn Jones hit her customary three. Tunnah and Holland hit late points for Templeogue but it was all academic as the packed Pres Gym cheered the hosts home.
MVP Rheanne O’Shea felt the team’s defence played a crucial part in the win.
“We worked together and our help defence has really come on leaps and bounds. That’s credit to our coach James Fleming and we were aware of their shooters and the dangers in their offence so we really worked our socks off on that,” she said.
SCORERS
ST PAULS: Rheanne O’Shea 16, Sofia Paska 16, Khiarica Rasheed 16, Lorraine Scanlon 8, Meabh Barry 8, Lynn Jones 5, Denise Dunlea 4, Leah McMahon 2.
TEMPLEOGUE: Lynn Tunnah 19, Madeleine Holland 14, Aoife Whelan 13, Lauren Darcy 7, Allanah O’Connell 5.