SKIBBEREEN Eagles Basketball Club’s U16s are flying high after winning the county championship final recently.
On a memorable day, four teams took part in the county finals – U12 boys, U14 boys, U16 boys and U20 boys – and the Skibbereen club was the only club to have four teams in finals on the day.
There was heartbreak for the U12s, U14s and U20s who all came up short in their finals. The U12s lost by a single point to Mallow, but this was the young Eagles’ first competitive year of playing basketball so reaching a Cork county final is an incredible achievement in itself. The U14s boys were defeated by a strong Crosshaven team, while the U20s went down to a Cobh team that had the upperhand in their meetings with Skibb this season.
But there was success for Skibb’s U16 side that defeated Labanga Academy from Midelton in their county final, winning 73-32. The match got off to a slow start where it was basket for basket on both sides, and Skibb finished off the first quarter with a promising 17-9 lead. By half time the Skibb lead had grown to 36-14. The second half saw the Eagles pull away and record a convincing win. The MVP award went to Finn Brickley who scored 29 points, but couldn’t have been done without the helpful assists of Sean Connolly. Captain Ruairi Collins scored 12 points, finishing the game strongly with two three-point shots.
The rest of the panel included Shaun Hodnett (9), Naoise Quinn (10), Andrew Scannell, Sean Connolly (2), Conor Hurley, Jamie Collins, Dovydas Odinbergas (3), Darragh McDonnell (4), Eoin O’Sullivan and Leo Karanaskas. Steve Redmond is the coach of this county title winning Skibbereen team.
