Ladies: U12 win for Blackhall
May 23, 2015The U12 girls team continued their march to the semi-finals with a comprehensive 5-10 to 2-3 win over North Meath club Dee Rangers in Batterstown on Friday night.
Inspired by some great work at midfield by Amy O'Leary and Louise Pearl, Blackhall raced into a 1-3 to 0-1 lead by the end of the first quarter, with Aoibhe Dolan showing her customary predatory instincts to grab the goal to add to points from Pearl and O'Leary (2).
However the North Meath girls struck back in the second quarter and were only a point behind at half-time, 1-4 to 1-3 having held the Blackhall girls to just one point (O'Leary) in the entire second quarter.
In truth the scoreline could have been an awful lot worse but for some resolute and lasp-gasp defending from Lucy Travers, Aimee Byrne and some goalkeeping heroics from Beth McHugh. Jenny Kneafsey was superb the whole way through, probably her finest display in the famous colours of the Gaels.
Some positional changes at half-time bore fruit, and Blackhall reasserted their dominance at midfield and had the game sealed up thanks to an incredible period of dominance in the first 6 minutes of the second half where they converted their possession to scores, which had been their problem in the first half. 3-3 was added in that 6 minute period with Dolan grabbing her second goal, Kate Clancy also put away a lovely goal and Amy O'Leary added the third. Points from Emma Byrne, Caitlin Berry and Amy O'Leary left the score at 4-7 to 1-3 going into the last quarter.
Again the defence held firm with Lucy Jennings getting in some good clearances and Kate Murray showed up really well before her customary cameo in goals towards the end, allowing Beth McHugh out to soak up a lot of ball around the middle.
The final quarter petered out a little, understandably, but there was still time for another couple of points from Amy, as well as a point from Roisin O'Connor who got into the match as it went on using her searing pace to good effect. Kate Clancy grabbed her second goal at the death to leave the girls sitting pretty on top of the table looking forward to a home semi-final. The selectors will look to repeat the performance and accuracy of that crucial third quarter for the upcoming matches.
Team:
Beth McHugh
Aimee Byrne
Lucy Travers
Kate Murray
Jenny Kneafsey
Lucy Jennings
Louise Pearl (0-1)
Emma Byrne (0-1)
Amy O'Leary (1-6)
Roisin O'Connor (0-1)
Aoibhe Dolan (2-0)
Kate Clancy (2-0)
Caitlin Berry (0-1)
