Hoops can avenge ‘embarrassing’ defeat and prove UCC’s demons
Young described his last visit to The Mardyke Arena as the most embarrassing day of his entire career after taking a drubbing from the home side.
This time, however, they are on a roll and last weekend they dumped the defending champions St. Vincent’s out of the competition to earn their quarter final place.
“We went through difficult patch,” he admitted. “But of the games we lost we were up in the fourth quarter with a chance to win but just did not make the plays down the stretch.
“That has all changed recently and we have been playing very well — just like our early run but with a lot of confidence.
“I think right now ourselves, Ballina and Demons are the toughest teams remaining in the competition and we owe Demons a big one.”
UCC Demons’ coach, Pat Price, is expecting just that, pointing out that Hoops are a good team and it’s going to be difficult to beat them.
“We played them twice and we got the job done twice,” he said. “So we won’t have too many surprises for Hoops. Kevin (Young) has done a wonderful job and the fact that they are up there competing for a trophy is testament to that.”
Demons, however, are on a roll. They have won seven of their last eight games, scored 130 points against Limerick last weekend and in their recent games they have had eight different players in double figures.
“We are sharing the ball very well, we have a healthy balance and the guys all feel they are capable of putting the ball in the basket,” Price said.
DART Killester will await the winners of this game for their semi-final in Limerick a week later while Abrakebabra Tigers are waiting for the winners of the game between Merry Monk Ballina and Mustang Sally’s/St. Paul’s at the Ballina SLC.
The Killarney club sought to have this game postponed until Sunday or Monday on account of Dr Crokes’ involvement in the All-Ireland Club football final in Croke Park.
“The town will be deserted,” PRO Eamonn Keogh said. “Everyone will be at the football game and a lot of our players wanted to go as well.’’
Still Ballina won’t be taking any chances: “At the end of the day Killarney are not a bad team and they are not there for nothing,” Ballina coach, Terry Kennedy, insisted. ‘‘But we are peaking at just the right time. We have five or six players in double figures every time and that is a big change from the days when we relied on two or three players to do the scoring.
“And Liam McHale has been outstanding since he came back. He has given us a whole new dimension.’’
This is semi-final weekend in the Women’s SuperLeague with the top four teams battling it out for the two places in the final in Limerick on Sunday week.
Regular season champions, UL Aughinish, will have home advantage against Mark Grennell’s DART Killester tomorrow afternoon when Killester will travel without their captain, Carmel Kissane, and Leah Wesbrooks has been only rated at 40% after she sustained an ankle injury playing for her school Holy Faith Clontarf in their School League Final win on Monday.
UL will have a full squad at their disposal but will need all our players to perform if they want to take a final spot in the finals which the Limerick side will be jointly hosting next weekend.
DCU Mercy host Bausch and Lomb Wildcats at DCU on Monday afternoon when Mark Ingle will have a full strength squad at his disposal. He has promoted the young Becky and Sarah Woods to the SuperLeague panel in recent weeks.
Wildcats will be without Michelle Aspell due to injury but will be otherwise at full strength going into one of the games of the season.
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