Roscommon handball round-up weekending March 27.
Cumann na mBunscoil Connacht finals
Lisacul National School had a wonderful day out in Salthill last Saturday landing two Connacht Cumann na mBunscoil titles and with a little luck it could have been three.
Grace Corrigan, sister of Connacht U16 champion Shauna, showed handball runs in the blood when she won the Girls U13 grade despite still being U12.
In her semi-final she showed great composure to beat the strong Freya Donnellan (Galway) 21-9. Qualified her for the final where she defeated Mayo's Ciara Hallinan 21-6.
The Boys U13 doubles pair of John Reilly and Micheal Greene were equally impressive beating Mayo's Callum Durkan and Matthew Foody in their semi-final. Galway's Aaron O'Domhnaill & Adam O Triondaloid 21-12 in the final to make it two out of two for Lisacul.
The hard luck story of the day was Lisacul's Ryan McDermott and Fionn Connolly's loss in the U11 doubles semi-final against eventual winners from Galway Sam O'Donaill and Timmy O'Cadhain.
They lost 21-20 in a match they really should have won. They easily won the third place playoff and will learn from their experience.
In the U11 singles Lisacul's Senan Johnston had a good win over Mayo's Christopher Sweeney in his semi-final. However he was beaten by a very good Mark Percy from Sligo in the final.
The only non-Lisacul NS player representing Roscommon on the day was Seamie Carthy from Gaelscoil de hIde. Carthy lost a cracker of a match with Inis Mor's powerful Bertie O'Donnchadha with the Galway youngster's power the difference.
40x20 doubles Connacht finals
Roscommon pairs competed in the Junior 'A', 'B' & 'C' 40x20 doubles Connacht finals at the weekend but were successful in only one.
The experienced Lisacul partnership of Denis Creaton and Sean Jennings were well beaten by their Galway counterparts Seamus Conneelly and Conor Noone in the junior 'A' final.
The Roscommon duo never hit their stride and had trouble dealing with Conneelly's power and with Noone picking almost all their kill attempts they were decisively beaten 21-9, 21-7.
The St. Coman's junior 'B' partnership of Colm Walsh and Niall Gordon were beaten by young Galway brothers Tommy and Jack McNeela. The Roscommon lads started well winning the first 21-15. They seemed to run out of steam afterwards losing the next 21-10 and 11-6.
The lone success was the Junior 'C' win for the young and not-so-young pair of Sean Rafftery and Tom Killion from St. Coman's. They fought the whole way to take a hard-earned win over Mayo's Fintan & Martin McManamon.
Having lost the first 17-21, they Roscommon lads showed great determination to come back and grind out the two remaining games 21-13, 11-7.
