Newry Flyers feel the crash of Thunder.

Last Sunday Newry’s U19 Boys faced the current league leaders Omagh Thunder in the 4th game of the season and while the Newry side fought to the final whistle they were unable to shake Omagh from their position.

The game opened fast with 6 strong points from the main Omagh threat Conor Mc Elroy to which Newry found it difficult to reply but with some strong drives to the basket from Newry Point Guard Conor Campbell Newry ended the quarter with only a 2 basket deficit.

Coach Paul Crawley stirred the team into action for the second quarter and the Newry boys took to the court looking more like the team we seen before. This quarter saw newcomers Aled Jenkins & Terry Guo lead the Newry side with strong rebounding work matched by on target outside shots these two proved to be a significant bolster to the Flyers team sheet.

However despite the best efforts of the Newry side they went into the half-time period down 21 -15.

The second half of the game did not see the Phoenix rise from the ashes for the Flyers and Omagh seemed only to go from strength to strength. Newry faced a zone defence for the first time this season and while the boys are used to dishing this sort of defence out it looked as though more work needs to be done to learn how to beat it. With 8 easy points coming from Omagh’s quick steals at the top of the key.

Newry struggled to put points on the board resulting in only 12 points from the second half. Mean while Omagh’s scoring machine Conor Mc Elroy punished the Flyers with a personal tally of 29 points.


In the end the Flyers conceded their second defeat of the season with the game finishing Newry Flyers 27 Omagh Thunder 48.

However it’s not all bad news for the Newry side as this game still leaves them currently in 2nd position in the league with two more games before the Christmas break.

MVP for the Newry side was Aled Jenkins.

Newry’s team where: A. Jenkins (7pts), T.Guo (6pts), (c) N.Byrne (4 pts), C. Campbell (4 pts), N. Mc Ardle (4 pts), D. Ruddy (2 pts), S. Bannon, A. Burns, P. Kavanagh, M. Hanratty, H. Liu, C.Cull & M.Hanratty