Mercy Mounthawk Second Years Basketball.
MOUNTHAWK second years boys basketball team were victorious in the Southwest Regional Finals last week as they put their perfect winning record this season on the line against St Pat’s of Castleisland.
The tournament was held in the Castleisland Community Centre with Mounthawk having qualified for the final by beating Rathmore, CBS Tralee and St. Brendan’s Killarney in the league section.
The last meeting between the two teams at the same stage last year ended in a heavy victory for St Pats. St Pats would then go on that year to eventually win the All-Ireland so Mounthawk faced a tough challenge this time around.
Mounthawk opened the game with a good defence leading to great steals from Raul Ventzel and Kevin O’Connor.
In the second quarter Mounthawk continued to dominate the game and kept a tight grasp on the play going into the second half with a lead of 16-9 in favour of the Tralee underdogs.
The turning point of the game came in the third quarter when Castleisland came with full court pressure and after a rough start, the trio of Dominic Craig, David McCarthy and Philip Corkery were cool and collected and handled the press well leading to easy baskets outscoring St Pats by 8 in the quarter.
Heading into the fourth quarter up 15 points, the game was slowly slipping away from Castleisland but Mounthawk kept up their intensity prevailing with a 43-27 win.
The 2nd year boys now qualify for the All Ireland playoffs on April 26.
