Dominant Demons end cup drought

C&S UCC Demons 82 Dublin Inter 64

For Shane Coughlan, their captain and veteran of 16 seasons, it was a record ninth National Cup final appearance and this latest success makes him just the second man after Damien Sealy to win the thing five times.

For Colin O’Reilly, it was a night that could hardly be bettered. In his first season as player/coach, the veteran centre has already claimed the big one and he played his part on court too with his nous and ten points.

Demons’ American power forward Lehmonn Colbert top-scored with 21 points to claim MVP while Ciaran O’Sullivan wasn’t far behind but UCC’s strength all season has been in the sheer quantity of their quality players.

They simply had too much in too many places for Inter.

It confirms the Cork club’s status as the country’s top team yet their unbeaten run of 11 games in the Premier League almost counted for naught in a knockout run where both UCD Marian and Killester came within a whisker of victory.

There was to be no last-gasp drama last night as they were behind — by two — only briefly in the game’s opening stages and proceeded to put more and more distance between them and their opponents as the night wore on.

No fairytale ending then for Inter, the multicultural club founded 13 years ago by Estonian Toomas Ilves who passed away last year and for whom the players were desperate to claim the silverware this weekend.

Cup finals can be all too easily simplified as a meeting of top dog and underdog but if ever a side deserved the moniker of favourites it was a Demons side facing an opponent 19 points less well off in the table and playing in its first final.

Dublin Inter came to Tallaght without a sponsor or a court to call their own but they started as if determined to avenge the 24-point reversal inflicted on them by the Cork side when they met in the Premier League early last month.

Inter were competitive at the off, trading baskets with their more illustrious opponents throughout a first quarter in which the lead was traded four times but which ultimately ended with Demons holding a four-point, 23-19 lead.

The evening’s second decider couldn’t hope to match that of the Women’s where it took overtime to separate Team Montenotte Hotel from UL Huskies but some of the early play whetted the appetite all the same.

Aurimas Statkus, a one-time elite player in Lithuania’s top league, swept a delicious round-the-back pass for Mindaugas Tamasauskas to finish at one point while Colbert drove down the paint at pace for a two.

That latter vignette would be a regular sight on the evening. Colbert was already into double figures soon after the start of the second quarter as Demons began to turn the screw on an Inter side that was depending too much on three-pointers.

Making matters worse was the fact that Statkus was held scoreless in that spell and the half was ushered in with at least three of the Inter players gesticulating in frustration at each other as the gap stretched to nine.

Dublin Inter’s problems were laid bare by the stats which showed that they had managed only eight points in the paint to the 26 for Demons and there was little solace in the figures listing rebounds where the ratio was 2:1.

It looked bleak for the outsiders and it got worse on the turn with Ciaran O’Sullivan particularly prominent in the scoring as the margin went out to 16 midway through the third before Inter called a halt with a timeout.

If the brainstorm helped it was hard to discern where or how.

With the writing on the wall, the sold out crowd began to filter out into the cold, dark night as the third quarter came to a close. Not the ideal climax then but Demons won’t care a jot about that.

C&S UCC Demons scorers: Colbert 21, C O’Sullivan 14, K Hosford 12, C O’Reilly 10, N O’Reilly 9, C Anon 6, S Coughlan 5, A O’Sullivan 3, D O’Sullivan 2.

Dublin Inter scorers: Tamusauskas 17, Remigijus Dimiciukas 13, Trakauskas 12, Statkus 7, Jonaitis 7, Eidukas 4, Landos 2, Glennon 2.