BASKETBALL: Huskies hit the heights again
“We are defending champions,” UL guard Louise Galvin put it cooly after the final whistle. “They beat us before Christmas but before that we had a sort of a stranglehold on the league and cup so we had a lot of confidence in ourselves.”
Huskies certainly started the game like a team that had been there before. With Rachel Vanderwal pushing the fastbreak and running mates Rachel Clancy and Louise Galvin beside her, the women from Limerick exploded out of the blocks and quickly established an 8-2 lead.
As the game settled, and with it Team Montenotte, Huskies held their early advantage but couldn’t expand it. The champions’ greater size was starting to become evident however, with Aoife McDermott the primary beneficiary as she established good positions time and time again close to the basket.
Despite this, Montenotte were never out of reach and the conservative zone defence played by Huskies allowed the challengers to swing the ball and find open shots, Tomica Bacic connecting on two of her first three attempts from long range.
After the end of the first half, where just five points separated the teams, Montenotte began to compete better on the boards. The aggression put Huskies in some foul trouble, picking up eight in the second quarter alone.
Constantly edging back into the contest, Montenotte’s Niamh Dwyer hit a monster three on the buzzer of half-time that left the ladies from Cork trailing by just two.
The champions composed themselves well at half-time however and came out to start the third quarter as they had the first. Michelle Fahy was the standout player in this period. While shooting two from two from the field, she also created with some sublime passing, pushing her team into a seven point lead going into the final period.
That gap pretty much remained. However, an alley-oop, coverted by Marie Breen did bring Montenotte back to four with two minutes remaining as the Montenotte faithful roared on their encouragement from the stands.
However, a crushing fastbreak lay-up by the always impressive McDermott soon after proved a nail in the Montenotte coffin, restoring the UL lead to six.
MVP Michelle Fahy put this performance ahead of even last year’s historically one-sided affair against DCU Mercy . “We played more as team. Our inside game worked, our outside game worked, as a team we made stops on defence…an all-around team defence.”
UL Huskies 69 (33): (R Vanderwal 26, M Fahy 14, R Clancy 13 Team Montenotte Hotel Cork 59 (31): (G Dwyer 20, T Bacic 15, M Breen 10)
MVP: Michelle Fahy
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