Ennistymon basketballers just pipped

St Munchin’s Limerick 37   Ennistymon VS 34  (after extra time)

Ennistymon Vocational School will take strong positives from this semi-final game at the South-West Regional Finals in Kanturk, with nine of the squad underage for the next two years. They certainly can look towards a strong showing in this competition if they can continue their progress.
They opened the brighter of the two sides and had the much-taller Limerick team on the ropes in the opening minutes, with John Dillon and Joey Rouine combining for 10 early points, two three-pointers coming from Dillon. This gave them an early 10-3 lead.
St Munchin’s Liam Collins connected on two three-pointers to have the Limerick side trail 15-8 at the end of the first quarter. The second quarter was a much more even affair and Ennistymon kept well in the game with strong rebounding from Pádraig Haugh, Roma Byrne and Aaron McNulty against the opposition. Shane McNamara and Adrian Hickey posed some problems for the Clare boys in this quarter and it ended with a three-pointer on the buzzer from John Dillon to tie the teams at 17 each.
St Munchin’s upped their defensive intensity after the half. Haugh and Byrne had the first Ennistymon scores and this quarter was played even with Liam Collin’s three-point range keeping Limerick well in touch. Rouine and Dillon added further baskets to trail 25 -24 going into the final quarter. Ennistymon were doing a better defensive job on Collins, though he had one more three-pointer. Coping with the size and maturity of Limerick was proving energy sapping for the smaller Ennistymon team but they held strong and in a thrilling finish earned extra time on a 32-32 scoreline.
McNamara for Limerick and John Dillon for Ennistymon were the key players in overtime with St Munchin’s finally getting the edge inside. Ennistymon will rue misses at the foul line but can certainly look forward to making an impression in this competition over the next two years. John Dillon finished the game on 21 points, with six from Joey Rouine and Byrne and two from Haugh.