St. Mary’s Basketball Club
Club of the year.
This has been a particularly good season for the club both nationally and locally. The club now has 17 teams, and cater for male and female, juvenile and senior. Made up from 260 members
They
were host to the Basketball Ireland Cup semi-finals. The event ran well and
praise was received from all visiting teams and the Governing body.
While
competing at a National level, the club also did extremely well in KAB
competitions. They were winners of 11 major KAB competitions and runners-up in
five more. They had one regional win when the U18 girls won the KCYMS tournament
in September, one National win when the U18 girls won the Cup in January and
were runners-up in the senior men’s National Cup. At National Level they were
among very few clubs who had three teams in the National Cup semi- finals and
two in the final.
Team Garvey’s were runners-up
in the Southern Conference and overall had 24 wins from 28 matches in what was a
very demanding season. Team Garvey’s continue to inspire up and coming players
in the area.
St. Mary’s continue to run one of the largest blitz
in the country (39th
last Dec) at Christmas, five days, 25 competitions, 191
games, 167 teams and all on time!
This
season Three Club
members were been selected as coaches of Kerry juvenile teams and their teams
all brought back gold from the Inter area tournament.
St.
Mary’s are committed to supporting events within the Community. They take part
in the St. Patrick’s Day parade and in the Rose of Con’s. They visit and
involve the local schools in their club events indeed many of their club members
are involved in coaching in schools and neighboring clubs. Denny Porter and
Maurice Casey have three schools All-Ireland titles to their credit outside of
the club this year.
Anyone
who has attended their big games or blitz in Castleisland will agree that great
effort is put in at all times in décor and entertainment.
Their popularity in the Community is evident as the red and black flags
can be seen flying from most windows when a major game is on the way and this
January they got an incredible send off to the Cup finals when the local schools
lined the street to wave them off.
The
members are thrilled with the award. “It
is a fantastic honour and one we are proud and delighted to accept, we were
complimented on our hosting of the Cup semi finals earlier this year, on the
fact that we get so much media coverage, on the number of members we have and
the interest we generate locally and also on the presentation we gave to
Basketball Ireland.
We
are extremely grateful to the media for their continued and extensive support of
the club, thanks also to the schools and members of the community along with our
sponsors all of whom we feel are part of the reason we won this award.
We feel it is very much a community effort”
Denis
Porter makes a presentation to club members Sean McCarthy (U16), Declan
Cahill m(U16)
and
Padraig Lucey (U18), all three boys play for Ireland this summer.