The Mercy Mounthawk First Year team which won the All-Ireland title in Dublin on Tuesday.
TRALEE has a new All-Ireland winning team after Mercy Mounthawk won a final yesterday in Dublin.
The first year team clinched the All-Ireland Schools First Year B Final title at the National Basketball Arena in Tallaght, beating Presentation Kilkenny 40-14.
“It was a massive achievement,” said Head Coach, Tomás O’Hanlon, when we spoke to him this morning.
“The seniors won the B All-Ireland earlier this year so it’s a huge boost to basketball in the school. We played St Genevieve’s of Belfast in the semi-final at 11.30am yesterday and won 46-21. We had lost in the cup to them a month ago so that was a good victory. Then we played Pres Kilkenny in the final at 1.30pm. It was 11-11 at half-time but we outscored them 29-3 in the second half. Out defence was very strong,” said Tomás.
The girls – who are coached by Tomás, with assistant coach Jimmy Diggin and team manager Amanda Brosnan – got a great welcome home from students and staff of the school this morning.
The school will now be playing A division next year thanks to their victories. It was a good weekend overall for Kerry teams as Presentation Castleisland and Presentation Tralee contested the A final on Sunday, showing how strong the sport is in our schools.
The Castleisland girls came out on top, beating the Tralee girls 40-12.
