Despite two excellent performances from Dylan Cunningham who finished with 27 points and Mike Callaghan who had 25 and a massive 21 rebounds SSE Renewables Moycullen were unable to secure the home win against Neptune on Saturday evening in NUIG. Despite that the big home support went home after watching an excellent game of basketball, which was in the melting pot until midway through the 4th quarter.
Both teams started out the game looking like they couldn’t miss; Neptune from the 3-point line and SSE Renewables from going inside and driving to the basket.
Both teams looked to push hard in transition and it quickly turning into a high tempo, free scoring spectacle much to the delight of the boisterous home support and to the annoyance of the coaches.
By the end of the first quarter SSE Renewables were down 1 point after both teams had shared a massive 63 points between them.
The second was the same as the first; free flowing, high tempo basketball.
With Tomas Gilson controlling the point and Paul O’Brien having his best game from a scoring viewpoint in this year’s campaign there was no let up on the scoring front. Unfortunately, the same could be said for the visitors who were also scoring with relative ease. After an amazing ¾ court buzzer beater at the end of the half, the gap was now 3 points and it was certainly all to play for in the 2nd half.
A poor start to the 3rd quarter saw the gap widen but the reintroduction of Eoghan Maxwell settled the team on defense and
It was turning into a case of seeing who would flinch first and unfortunately it was the home team that did after 2 minutes of the 4th quarter. A number of missed opportunities on the offensive end led to some easy score and suddenly from only being 4 down, the gap had jumped to 12. Try has they might, that offensive rhythm that was so good in the first three quarters was gone and with the visitors paying “special attention” to Cunningham & Callaghan the scores dried up.
It was cruel luck on SSE Renewables Moycullen but they must pick themselves up and get ready for the next game in this year’s Premier League. On Saturday they travel to Dublin to play UCD Marian and they will be hoping to overturn the result from October against the Dubliners.
Dylan Cunningham 27, Mike Callaghan 26, Paul O’Brien 11, Stephen O’Brien 9, Sean Candon, Gerald Lyons 5, Ian Burke 2, Ronan O’Sullivan 2, Eoghan Maxwell 1, Tomas Gilson, Darragh Mulkerrins, Evan Costelloe, Nollaig Cunningham
Categories: Men's Superleague
CC Mhaigh Cuilinn 