The past year has been quite a successful one for handball in County Monaghan. Many of our Juveniles performed well throughout Ulster and a number of them reached All-Ireland Semi-finals. By Conor McDonnell There has been two new handball Courts opened, one at Bawn and the other at St. Mellans, Truagh. These Courts have been built through hard dedicated community and club work, and both clubs have to be congratulated for providing these enhanced facilities for the game of handball. All-Ireland Adult winners: The County Monaghan Adult Player of the Year is Martin Mc Entee, Monaghan Harps, and what a brilliant season he had. Martin commenced his season in St Pauls Golden Gloves competition and was carrying a slight injury into the competition. He was defeated in this competition, but this was to be the only competition Martin was unsuccessful in for the rest of the season. The Envirogreen Resource Irish Nationals competition was next on Martin's list. In the Golden Masters B Singles Final, Martin defeated Jimmy Neary, Killkenny by a margin of 21-10, 21-19. In the All Ireland final of the GMBS Martin took on Pat Hopkins, Mayo. He was always in control and won the title 21-12, 21-4. The following week Martin and his playing partner, Pete Larkin, Emyvale, played Michael Heraty and Liam Burke, Mayo in the GMBD All-Ireland Final. The first game was very close and could have swung either way, but the men from the West took it 21-18. But the experienced Farneymen came back and won the next two games 21-16 and 21-18 to take the title. Three All-Ireland titles for Martin Mc Entee, some achievement in one season!!. Cumann na mBunscoil This year we had a very successful County Competition with eight schools taking part. St. Mary's Boys School, Monaghan took all four County titles with Simonas Seskevicious in U11 Singles, Mark Mc Donnell and Ciaran Cassidy in U11 Doubles, Darren Doherty in U13 Singles and Mantas Zalikas and Kashif Ahmad in U13 Doubles. The boys went on to the Ulster final and three of the four Ulster finals. In the All Ireland stage the team performed very well. Feile na nGael In the County competition Monaghan Harps Club defeated Tydavnet. The Harps team consisted of Mantas Zalikas, Simonas Seskevicius, Ruaidhri Curran (Capt.), Darren Byrne and Brendan Mc Quaid and took part in Division 4 of the All Ireland competition. Throughout this competition, the young players impressed many other teams with there outstanding play on the Courts. They battled all the way to the semi-finals, where they took on a much fancied Cavan team. The Cavan boys were older and the experience showed as they went on to defeat the Monaghan team in the Semi-finals. It was a very spirited performance by our Monaghan team, and no doubt they will be trying hard to go further in next year's competition. County Juvenile Singles Competition The County Juvenile Singles Competition was hosted over three week-ends in late November with the finals taking place in the new complex at St Mellans on Sunday 7th December. There were some thrilling finals throughout the entire day in matches ranging from Under 12 Boys, Under 12 girls to Under 15 Girls and Under 17 Boys. One bright prospect for the future is Darren Doherty, Emyvale, who defeated Mateusz Kowalski, Monaghan Harps in the Boys Under 14 Final. Simonas Seskevicius, Monaghan Harps defeated Conor Leonard, Tydavnet in the Boys Under 12 Final. The Boys Under 12 Plate competition was won by Ciaran Cassidy, Monaghan harps after defeating Matthew Flood, St. Mellans. The following also won County Singles titles; Under 12 Girls Shauna Mc Aree, St Mellans; Under 13 Boys, Mantas Zalikas, Monaghan Harps; Under 13 Plate Cathal Sweeney, Tydavnet; Under 14 girls, Amy Murray, St Mellans; Under 15 Girls Niamh Farrell, Carrickmacross; Under 15 Boys, Stephen Kerr, Tydavnet; Under 16 Boys Padraig Mc Kenna, St. Mellans; Under 17 Boys, Darren Mc Clenaghan, St. Mellans. Tweet

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