MERCY Mounthawk’s U19 Basketball team won their first ever invitational tournament at home after six years of hosting the event.

At the weekend, Mounthawk beat St Malachy’s from Belfast in the final by a score of 37-32.

“I am thrilled for the boys. Seven games in two days is hard enough but to win them all you need an extremely strong team of players and that’s what we have,” said Mounthawk U19 Basketball coach, John Dowling.

“They’re a team who doesn’t care who scores or gets the headlines but just want’s to win at all costs and they proved that last weekend,” said John.

After two action packed days and 18 trilling games of a very high standard Mounthawk defeated every team in their annual invitational tournament and finished with a perfect 7 and 0 winning record.

In a weekend of firsts Mounthawk also defeated old rivals St Malachy’s for the first time in the school’s history after losing in the last four years to the school from Belfast.

The semi-finals and final were all played on Sunday in Mounthawk. St Malachys beat Douglas of Cork in the semi-final with Mounthawk overpowering Castleisland in the last quarter after a heavily fought game.

The Tralee team beat all the sides in the tournament on the way to victory, including St Malachy’s and Castleisland twice. Tommy Sheehy of Mercy Mounthawk was named Most Valuable Player (MVP).

Competing over Saturday and Sunday were six teams from around Ireland, including Mercy Mounthawk. They were, Christian Brothers (Cork City), St Malachy’s (Belfast), Gaelcholáiste Mhuire A.G. (Cork City), Douglas Community School (Cork City) and Castleisland Basketball Club.

“The team performed excellently along with some great individual displays from Tommy Sheehy and Cian O’Sullivan,” said John. “It’s a great way to kick off a new season , one that we are really looking forward to.”

The school will be hosting another basketball tournament this weekend in the U16 grade. Once again schools from around the country will compete including teams from Dublin, Galway and Sligo.