Under 16 Boys Tournament
The Cork County Basketball Board Under 16 Boys tournament took place on Saturday the 7th of December 2024. Thankfully with Storm Darragh abating we were able to welcome all eighteen clubs from across the country to Cork.
Outside of the Billy Kelly Tournament and our championship weekend this is probably one of our busiest undertakings of the year, so much so that we had to start the tournament on Friday night with our local Cork teams braving the stormy weather and tipping off the tournament with two city derbies in Gaelcholaiste Mhuire.
Saturday morning brought us some bright and breezy conditions outside but a festival of youth basketball inside starting with Eanna v. Moycullen, Phoenix v. Sligo All Stars tipping off in the Parochial Hall and Fr. Matthews v. Limerick Celtics. After seven hours of play we had our quarter finals where we saw Eanna v. St. Mary’s 1 and Limerick Lions v. Sligo All Stars in Parochial Hall. Templeogue and Limerick Celtics met in St. Vincents and Dublin Lions played St. Brendan’s in Gaelcholaiste Mhuire. Three of our teams had comfortable wins and advanced to our semi-finals apart fromone of our Dublin and Kerry games with St. Mary’s 1 narrowly beating Eanna by three points.
All eyes then focused on the Parochial Hall for our semifinals where St. Mary’s 1 met Templeogue on court 1 and we had a meeting of Lions on court with Limerick Lions and Dublin Lions on court 2. St Mary’s who had played some well drilled basketball all day came out victors by nine points on court 1. They also found time to scout their opponents as the game on court 2 as the second semifinal went to overtime with the Dublin side the victors on a scoreline of 57 points to 63 points.
As we were entering the tenth hour of basketball, the final of the under 16 tournament began, despite the extra minutes in their legs Dublin Lions went into half time with a two point lead. St. Mary’s 1 turned around the lead in third and lead by four at the end of the quarter. The final quarter was tit for tat with our M.V.P. Glen O’ Sullivan to the fore. As the action came to end the Kerry side came out on top and taking the trophy back to Castleisland.