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Mercy Mounthawk basketballers Daire Kennelly, Sean and Tim Pollmann-Daamen and Leeroy Odiahi who are off to Irish squad training camps this weekend.
FOR the first time in Mercy Mounthawk’s history, the school has four players heading to Gormanstown, Co. Meath this weekend for the Irish national squad training weekend.
Sean and Tim Pollman-Daamen are 3rd year students and have been training with the Irish under 16 team with the last year.
This squad started out in regional academy with over 240 players and is now down to 26. This weekend will see the squad cut down again to 18 players where they will try and follow on the footsteps of Daire Kennelly who made the same squad last year. The team’s head coach is Pat Price, the current Tralee Warriors head coach.
Daire Kennelly who was a member of the Irish under 16 squad who made it to the European championship last year in Bulgaria, is hoping to do the same again when he travels for under 18 trials.
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Daire has trained with the under 17 panel for the past year as well as being a member of the Tralee Warriors squad and now hopes to build on last year’s success by making the final 20 of the under 18 squad.
Leeroy Odiahi is also hoping to make the squad. Leeroy, who only started playing basketball two years ago, has made huge strides in the game the past six months.
He has been called into Garveys Tralee Warriors training squad and just this past weekend he played with Tralee Imperials and in an Under 20 preseason tournament in Cork . He impressed Irish under 18 head coach, Paul Kelliher, so much at that tournament that he has now also called Leeroy up for this training weekend .
John Dowling, teacher and basketball coach at Mercy Mounthawk said the whole school is proud of the lads.
“To have four guys in the final stages fighting for Irish spots is a tremendous achievement for our school. All of the lads have been training all summer with our coaching staff, as well as the Irish team, so credit must go to the players for putting in such a tremendous effort. No matter what happens this weekend we are incredibly proud of our guys,” he said.
