These are exciting times for the shooting basketball stars of SCS with both the under 16 and under 19 boys through to the All Ireland series. On Thursday last, both teams took on formidable opponents in their respctive county finals, Beara Community School and Youghal.
Beara are a side our team know well having beaten us comfortably in last years county final. Recent clashes with the westerners have rarely failed to thrill and this one was no exception. The scintillating battle that unfolded in the Neptune Stadium was a testament to both sides and pulsed with energy from tip to final buzzer. It was a game that could be owned or surrendered and control was in our hands. To a point.
Throughout this intriguing game, three players stood out, as those who dominated the action. Beara's supremely talented Dylan Crowley who had learned his skills in the States, scored 20 points, ten in each half. He also caused utter havoc to our defence with explosive drives, precision passes and sharp shooting, often from beyond the 3 point line. Tom Kavanagh from the SCS side had a mercurial performance, dominating the boards and driving purposely like a man inspired. Tom contributed 12 points to our side and kept our challenge alive while many of us were faltering under the pressure.
Finally I come to the one who lights up the stadium bringing oohs and aahs at his skillful manoeuvres. The brilliant Eividas Andreikius controlled the offence, top scored with 24 points, worked tirelessly in defence to curb the ever present Dylan threat. His overall performance earned him the man of the match award on this occasion.
Beara started this game with their three guards in inspired form shooting with supreme accuracy, 15 points mostly from the top of the right and left wing which had us stretched to the limit and beautifully shot by two of the Beara guards Mikey and Gerard O'Shea. After the match, The Beara coach told us that he had the advantage of playing us already this year and knew the areas to attack in our defence. An interesting observation and one that lets us know we need to expose Beara to some new challenges if we meet them in Tallaght in the final!
The relentless pressure tested and stretched our defence to the limit and exposed some of our frailties but our tenacious defence and our trapping was effective and caused lots of problems. Our offence lacked depth, purpose and patience and caused us to force our shots when better options were available. Our western opponents crept ahead into a 4 point lead. But for Tom, their lead would have been much more as he kept us in this game at the early stages. Tom and Daniel bombarded the tight Beara zone and added to some Eividas magic reduced the deficit to a single point at half time.
With the game in the melting point and tensions rising, players with character stand up. On this occasion, Eividas upped the tempo of the entire game, became irrepressible in attack and popped 3 point shots in like an NBA star.
Not alone did he score 16 points in this period but it also caused the Beara defence to be stretched at the seams in an effort to control him, which left gaping holes on the baseline for Tom, Daniel and Darragh to exploit.
Dan Buckley had one of his best games in an SCS shirt and contributed 8 points to the scoreline. The little ones from second year Luca, Brian and Dylan were vibrant presences in defence.
SCS stretched our lead in the second half and ended with a comfortable 57 to 39 point victory, the score very much belying the tension of the game.
Going forward to the All Ireland Cup semi next Monday, we will need to improve on this performance but we are going into this battle with every intention of getting to an All-Ireland final.
Good luck to the team on Monday in U.L. We are taking on Clonmel who have beaten our senior team earlier in the season and will do everything in our power to make it happen so that our entire squad will go to Tallaght..
I would like to acknowledge the huge amount of work done by the Skibbereen Eagles basketball club and the relentless, fantastic Steve Redmond, Máire Keating who generously gave up so much time to coach many of the under 19 boys since first year, Mags Breen who did the stats on the day for us which really helps us in our journey to learn and master this wonderful game and the drivers who take time out of their busy lives to bring us to the Cup matches.
Onwards and upwards SCS.
