Mixed fortunes for Portlaoise Under-18 men in All-Ireland League
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THERE were mixed fortunes for Portlaoise Panthers in the latest round of the Under 18 Men’s All-Ireland League last Sunday, as their 81-62 victory over Neptune in Scoil Rúain Killenaule was followed by their first defeat of the campaign against Templeogue (70-50).
Jack Scully’s side was coming into this round of fixtures on the back of victories over Tipp Talons and Maree in Week One, and they certainly hit the ground running in their third game against Neptune, opening up a 29-17 lead by the close of the first quarter.
Darragh O’Loughlin put up 10 points in that period alone and would finish the game top scorer on a hugely impressive 29, with Giovanni Osadolor, Sochima Onourah and Noah Barbour supplying a further 41 to Panthers’ cause.
The Laois side increased their advantage to 16 points (46-30) by the half-time break, Aidan Carney doing his best to keep Neptune in touch with 13 first-half points and a further eight in the second.
But Portlaoise only tightened their hold on proceedings with a further eight-point run early in the third quarter that helped see them take a commanding 65-43 cushion into the closing eight minutes.
Neptune did managed to get a run of their own going early in the fourth, Iganacy Cerdowski, Daniel Kiely, Aidan Carney and Noah Loftus all accounting for 11 unanswered points.
But it still left the Cork side facing a 13-point deficit, and Portlaoise went about enlarging that gap by way of an ‘and one’ from O’Loughlin, before Evan Branagan converted from beyond the arc and Osadolor got in for two more buckets to see Portlaoise comfortably over the line.
It looked like Portlaoise might complete the first two weekends of National League competition with a clean sweep after they stormed into a 23-9 first-quarter lead against Templeogue in their next game, Onourah and Barbour accounting for 13 points between them in that early surge.
Scully’s side added a further three to that advantage early in the second period, but Templeogue finally began to make the stops and work their way back, starting with three swift buckets from Harry Tighe, Max Moran and Davin Lawrence.
By the half-time break the gap was down to eight points (33-25), and they picked up in the third quarter where they left off in the second, Conor Murray putting up a deuce and Oisin Toomey a treble to leave just three between the sides.
That was soon followed by a seven-point run that propelled the Dubliners in front for the first time since the opening minute of the game, and the tide completed turned when they added a further 14 points without reply to establish a 54-37 lead heading into the final period.
Portlaoise needed to act fast in the fourth if they were to have any chance of hauling this game out of the fire, but instead they lost a further three points as Davin Lawrence and Harry Tighe put up an additional 10 down the stretch, the latter subsequently taking his tally to 25 by the final buzzer.
