Lions win in the Demons den
This year a back-door system means that the five teams defeated in the first round will get an opportunity to get back into the competition but nobody would have expected the NIVEA for MEN SuperLeague champions would have to take the back door route.
Tommy Hehir’s Lions, however, are proving to be virtually unbeatable on the road and they travelled to Cork on Saturday to record what was their third successive away win over the side that had taken the SuperLeague by storm.
They led from early in the game after James Whyte landed a big three pointer after 20 seconds to set the pace for Demons. Limerick’s new Americans, Robert Beattie Taylor and Jonathan Stevens stepped up and, with the Demon’s defence struggling, they took absolute control.
They led 28-17 at the end of the first quarter, went 14 points clear early in the second and then withstood a revival from the home side to hold on to a 49-46 lead at half-time.
It was basket for basket for a time but the gap began to widen again and there were eight points between the sides going into the final quarter.
Limerick, with enough fire power up front, turned on the style at the back and Demons were sent into the second round along with neighbours Neptune, Roma St Vincent’s, Ballina, Shamrock Rovers Hoops and MDS Star, who got a bye.
“Demons have so much heavy artillery that it was always going to be dependant on our defence,” Limerick Coach Tom Hehir said. “We defended very well, we never lost our composure when we were put to the test a few times and then we battled back under pressure. We stayed with the job throughout the whole game.
“Rob Lynch had a fine game for us, Jon Steven and Niall Campbell were excellent but it was a team performance. Ricardo [Leonard] made a big contribution, Adrian Walsh also shone but it was very much a case of players helping each other.”
It was a similar situation up in Ballina where Abrakebabra Tigers arrived after just one SuperLeague outing as something of an unknown quantity and came away with a hard earned 97-95 victory.
“It is always difficult to get a result in Ballina at the best of times,” Coach Joe Quirke admitted. “It was particularly difficult this time because we struggled early on. Defensively we were good but the shots were not dropping for us. They went 16 points up in the third quarter and we brought it back to seven going into the last quarter. Then we went six up with 65 seconds remaining and we hung on. Defensively we were excellent. It was all pretty exciting.”
Luke O’Hea dropped four three pointers in the last quarter to turn the game around but everybody stepped up. John Teahan ended up with 19 points while Eric Bush, who doubles up as co-coach with Joe Quirke, was also outstanding. Roscoe Patterson did an excellent job while Ciaran Donaghy was, once again, a revelation.
UCD secured their quarter-final place with a 119 to 107 home victory over Neptune after dominating the game from the outset.
Neptune’s Robert Brown hit a game high of 39 points but they could not match the three point shooting of the home side.
DART Killester had their first win of the season when they beat Roma St Vincent’s 96-91 while Gleneagle Lakers also rediscovered their form to beat Shamrock Rovers Hoops 106-90 at the Greendale Gym.
In the women’s Superleague, Mercy Coolock inflicted the first league defeat on defending champions UL Aughinish in four years when they won 74-43 in Limerick.
Mustang Sallys beat Peugeot Meteors 56-53 in Killarney to record their first win of the season while Vienna Woods Glanmire had a 10 point win over DART Killester with Leanne More netting 18 points as they fought back from a 12 point half-time deficit.
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