Onwards and upwards for Ennistymon CBS

CBS Ennistymon U-19 basketball had a comfortable 54 to 27 victory over St Colmcille (Ballyshannon) in their first play-off game in Ennistymon on Saturday last in the National Colleges U-19 basketball competition.
In the second game, they squared up to a very determined Castleblaney team and only two points separated the sides at the end of the third quarter. Ennistymon racked up a 10-point gap in the fourth, thanks to some tremendous work from the Kinch brothers, to give CBS a comfortable win 47 to 32.
St Joe’s (Derry) were next up and were very impressive in their previous two games. Derry got off to  a lightning start and were dominating the rebounds offensively and defensively and led at half-time 32 to18. In the third quarter, Ennistymon started to get the ball inside to their big boys, Ciarán Devitt and Ronan Linnane, and both stepped up to the mark contributing 14 points between them. In the fourth quarter, the crowd were starting to rally behind the local CBS boys and young Michael Leigh hit two outside jumpers to level the game with two minutes on the clock. Ennistymon kept driving forward and penetrating the Derry defence, sending the outstanding O’Halloran to the free throw line once again. It was to be CBS’s day in what proved to be one of the best games of basketball seen in Ennistymon for a long time. The team now look forward to the final play-offs next weekend and must keep this momentum going if they are going to repeat their All-Ireland success of last year.
Ennistymon CBS: Ciarán Devitt (19), Michael Leigh (12), Tommy Kinch (6), Ryan O’Halloran (6), Ronan Linnane (3), Mattie Kinch (2), Ryan Doyle, Eoin Davies, Brian Davies, Dean Fitzgerald, Ian Cuddihy and Séamie Parra.