Last Sunday the Newry Fliers U19 boys team ended their league season with a tough challenge from North Star, Derry.
It had been a long wait from October 09 for the Fliers to meet North Star again and having conceded the game in Derry by only 2 points the Fliers were ready to make amends on their home court.
However North Star are never a team to be taken lightly and from the tip off it was a physical and fast paced game. Newry’s Nial Mc Ardle opened the scoring with a trademark inside shot followed up by two quick baskets in succession from point guard Conor Campbell but Derry responded with a 3 point shot and a run of fast breaks.
Strong defensive zones on both sides of the court made the first quarter a hard hitting game and with Newry finding it hard to penetrate the zone North Star finished the quarter 13 to 8.
Coach Paul Crawley was not impressed at the break and demanded from his team that they pick up their game and demand respect on their home court. “We’ve waited all season to face North Star again and we need to show them that this is our court”.
The strong words from Coach Crawley seemed to be the tonic the team needed as they attacked the basket with venom and fought hard to pull down any board in their reach.
Offensively the team picked up the pace with all five players picking up baskets while holding Derry to only 4 points in the quarter. Allowing Newry to go into the second half with a lead of 3 points.
The third quarter followed suit and it seemed as if the Filers had North Star on the ropes with a 10 point lead but the Derry side have never been the sort to lie down easily and so the fourth quarter was a battle with Derry pulling the deficit back to only 3 points.
Some good use of time outs by Coach Crawley prevented the North Star side from gathering too much pace and allowed his team to use the clock to their advantage. With one last offensive push Terry Guo and Nial Byrne the Newry side once again opened the lead to 8 points allowing the Fliers to finish their final league game winners with a score of 49 to 41.
But it doesn’t end there for the Fliers and the team have an anxious wait now to see if either they or North Star will make it to the U19 finals in the Antrim Forum on April 10th to face Omagh Thunder.
The boys can do no more their fate is in the hands of the Derry team and the final two games they have to complete.
MVP for the Newry side was Terry Guo.
Newry’s team where: C. Campbell (14 pts), N. Mc Ardle (14 pts), A. Jenkins (9pts), T.Guo (8pts), (c) N.Byrne (4 pts), M.Hanratty, A. Burns, P. Kavanagh, H. Liu.
