Kestrels serve up impressive display on All-Ireland Club Championship stage

KESTRELS certainly turned a few heads with their impressive performance at last weekend’s Under-14 Girls All-Ireland Club Basketball Championships in Gormanston.

The Portarlington side won two of their three games in Group Five, to reach the quarter-finals of the B division where they were ultimately beaten 51-32 by eventual champions, Fr. Mathews.

A narrow three-point defeat at the hands of near neighbours, Portlaoise Panthers was all that denied them top spot in their respective pool, but this Kestrels team will, no doubt, be buoyed by the level of their performance right throughout this competition.

They comfortably surmounted the challenge of Kilrush in their opening game on Saturday, running out 32 -9 winners.

While the Clare side did put it up to their Laois rivals in the opening half, at the end of which they trailed by only five points (14-9), Kestrels really flexed their muscles in the second half, keeping their opponents scoreless, while they added a further 18 points to their advantage.

Stella Gallagher finished top scorer on eight points for the Portarlington outfit, while Grace Brady, Róise Dunne and Ava O’Dwyer each weighed in with a further six apiece to help get their side off to a winning start.

Maree provided their next hurdle in the competition, and Kestrels took every quarter to emerge 36-20 winners.

Both Gallagher and Dunne hit double figures in that game, each accounting for 13 points, which went a long way to seeing their team make it two from two, leaving themselves on a sound footing for their much-anticipated county derby against Panthers.

Still, it was not the start to this group decider that Kestrels had hoped for, Portlaoise hitting 10 points without reply, with Saoirse Reddin and Hannah Tuohy each accounting for four and Mya Dunne making up the balance of that early surge.

Yet Kestrels regained their composure to halve that deficit by the end of the first quarter before seeing the second end at four points apiece.

Louise Foster’s side really found their groove in the third, as a 12-point run helped see them overtake into a 21-18 lead heading into the final period, Aisling Brady picking up five while Grace Brady drained a big treble.

But Portlaoise hit back with six unanswered points over the closing two minutes of this contest through Edel Ramsbottom and Touhy to clinch a 27-24 win.

The result meant Kestrels would face a highly-fancied Fr. Mathews team in the B quarter-finals, and while only five points separated the two sides at the break, the Cork outfit pushed on in the second half to emerge 51-32 winners, Isobel McCarthy delivering a huge 26 points for them.

Speaking about her team’s display in Gormanston last weekend, Kestrels head coach, Louise Foster told the *****Laois Nationalist:*****, “I was very happy with the girls’ performance.

“It was a great achievement to get to the All-Ireland B quarter-finals considering that most of the girls are underage for next year,” she added.

KESTRELS: Katie Moore, Grace Brady, Emma Dunne, Megan McCausland, Abagail Cherie Reekoye, Cara Cooper Keogh, Aisling Brady, Anaistisa Laisy, Stella Gallagher, Róise Dunne, Ava O’Dwyer.