St. Mel’s college were crowned Midlands Secondary Schools Senior A Champions with a convincing 12-point victory over St. Mary’s CBS Portlaoise.
St. Mel’s signalled their intent early in Friday’s final. A steal by David Maher on the first pass of Portlaoise’s opening possession led to a fast transition. Maher registering St. Mel’s first basket for an early lead.
While a shooting foul led to two free throws successfully converted by the hosts. St. Mel’s responded with a fast offense, Patrick Clancy landing his first three-pointer of the day.
Encouraged by the vocal band of St. Mel’s supporters. A tense first-quarter concluded with an O’Callaghan three-pointer for Portlaoise and another Clancy three to leave the teams level on 12 points each.
The second-quarter saw St. Mary’s with greater offense composure. However, the hosts continued to show better patience on the offense, moving the ball from side-to-side waiting for the St. Mel’s defence to get stretched out of position before taking the higher percentage shot.
The introduction of Oscar Gorman and Darragh Kelly helped St. Mel’s to keep up their intensive defensive pressure.
When Jonathan added a converted offensive rebound for the Longford school, momentum started to swing back towards St. Mel’s.
Two inspirational three-pointers from Captain David Maher and another basket by Patrick Clancy on an 8-0 run, left St. Mel’s with a slender 26-25 lead at half-time.
The third-quarter was remarkable for the intensity of the defensive pressure of both teams. While, St. Mel’s held Portlaoise scoreless for over four minutes, a nice midrange shot from Darragh Kelly edged St. Mel’s further in front.
When Portlaoise finally found space to land their first three-pointer since the eighth minute, it was the irrepressible Maher who popped up with another three-pointer for St. Mel’s to preserve their narrow one-point lead heading into the final-quarter.
Strong St. Mel's defence
The introduction of Luke Kavanagh to start the fourth-quarter was another attempt by Portlaosie to break the deadlock.
While Kavanagh was involved twice in the opening basket of the period, Kavanagh was kept fairly quiet by the intensity of the St. Mel’s defending.
With Portlaoise having retreated into a zone defence, Maher was freed by a clever screen from Gustavs Sevcuns. The St. Mel’s captain made no mistake from three-point range to restore the Mel’s lead.
Kavanagh was then on the mark for a strong inside basket before a missed second free-throw from Maher was rebounded and converted left-handed by Chukum Ede.
The next play saw some great defensive work from Darragh Kelly to force a Portlaoise turnover. St. Mel’s were quick to convert the fast break through Maher for another huge basket.
Yet another forced turnover released David Jonathan on the fast break which saw Jonathan head to the free-throw line. On the resumption, Jonathan converted one of his free-throws before the next St. Mel’s attack saw Clancy land a monster three-pointer.
In a hugely-impressive fourth-quarter performance St. Mel’s overpowered St. Mary’s 22-11 to be crowned Midland Senior A Champions on a 55-43 score-line.
The victory gives the team a home draw in the last-16 of the All-Ireland play-offs in the New Year.
St. Mel’s College: Oscar Gorman, Eoin Connolly, Francis Nwankwo, Patrick Clancy (17), Jamie Dorr, Enda Quinn, Senan McWeeney, David Maher (17), Gustavs Sevcuns, Charles Adeosun, Darragh Kelly (2), Mesach Mzamba, Daniel Beer, Paddy Garland, David Jonathan (7), Prosper Chukum Ede (12).
