IT WAS weekend success on the double for Belfast-based teams in the National Leagues as Belfast Star won on the road in Galway and Ulster Rockets blasted to another win in the Women’s Division One.
But Star, despite victory, are not that happy with their performance.
They struggled to overcome Moycullen by 74 points to 71, while, at Methodist College, Rockets had an 11-point (70-59) win over Castleisland to move into third place in the table.
“We are happy that we won but not happy with our performance against Moycullen, who didn’t have an American on court,” says secretary Danny Fulton.
“After playing so well against Killester, our performance was very disappointing. We were slow – we didn’t make the fast breaks but we have got to be glad that we scraped through.
It was a tight game all through with Star just shading the scoring at half-time, being 36-34 ahead. Keelan Cairns was fouled out early in the third quarter and that didn’t help the visitors’ cause.
With 15 seconds left to play Star led by just one point. Moycullen called a time-out and from a Star in-ball Michael Jackson was fouled. He netted the two free-throws to seal the win.
Shawn Vanzant top-scored on 25 points, in-form Paddy McGaharan netted 11 and Fergal Toner added 10.
Once again, Sasha Seymour made a good contribution when going in off the bench and hit seven points.
Star have a free weekend coming up but then have four games in eight days which could be a season settler.
Ulster Rockets carved out a 70-59 victory against a tough Castleisland team that is coached by former Killarney player Cormac O’Donoghue.
The victory could, however, have been bigger as the home team missed a number of lay-ups.
Still, it was another great performance from the winners with everyone on court playing a vital role and closing down the dangerous Kerry players for most of the match. Fitness is a big factor in Rockets play.
Emma O’Connor suffered an ankle injury right at the tip-off but shook off the setback to again play a starring role to which her team-mates responded perfectly, with eight Rockets scoring.
Centre Lorraine Scallon was a handful for the home side to curb, while Spaniard Miriam Rollin played tough, but overall the winners never really looked in dangerous territory, despite the fact that the visitors never really went out of the game.
They were 20 points down in the second half but battled back to close the gap to six.
Rockets led 18-14 after the first quarter and two three-pointers from Aoife O’Callaghan in the second opened out the winners to 30-20. They led 33-24 at the short hooter and 55-44 going into the last period.
It was then that Castleisland put on a surge to leave it a six-point game. Coach O’Donoghue became animated and received a ‘technical’ from the referee five minutes from time with Rockets pulling away again for a valuable and deserved 70-59 victory.
O’Connor had a game high 24 points, sharp-shooter Helena Dornan netted 16 and Aoife O’Callaghan made 12.
