U18 Triumph in Cork 

30 September 2009

The St. Vincent's U18 team emerged from one of the toughest groups in the competition to qualify for the quarter final of the National Cup.  The team headed down to Cork on Friday 25th September and awoke to take on a highly fancied Ballincollig side on Saturday morning at 11:30am.  Unfortunately the Vincent's lads were slow to start and struggled to get to grips with the size of the Ballincollig team and to get used to the Mardyke Arena baskets.  We ended up on the wrong side of a 76 to 44 score line and the chances of qualification looked bleak at that point.  

The team regrouped to take on Moycullen later on Saturday and put in a fine team performance to win by a score of 71 to 35.  All 12 Vincents players played in that game with 10 getting on the score sheet.

On Sunday morning Vincent's faced the host club, Blue Demons.  The game was tight all the way with teams tied at 29 at half time.  Mantis Rubyou led the way offensively and capped a fine 27 point performance by scoring the go ahead lay-up with 30 seconds to go.  Daniel Fernee put in a great defensive display in this one and Neil Kelly sealed the win by scoring an important free throw with 3 seconds to go to put the score at 50-48.

So it was down to the final game vs UCD Marian on Sunday afternoon to try to secure qualification.  We had already beaten Marian in the league and Tolka tournament this season but they had the advantage of having rested for the day on Sunday.  The Vincent's lads kept the momentum from the earlier game by builing up a 7 point half time lead.  They continued playing well led by Karlo Vasquez's 24 points (including 5 3-pointers) to have a 9 point lead with less than 2 minutes to go.  UCD Marian put on a press however and started to hit big shots while the Vincent's guys finally tired and they brought the lead back to just 1 points with 20 seconds to play.  Sam Kiernan made a fantastic driving lay-up to bring the lead back to 3 points and we qualified by winning 58-55.

We will face defending champions Maree in the quarter final in Galway on the weekend of 5/6 December.