An outstanding display by SSE Airtricity Moycullen saw them come away with a 76-74 point victory when they made the trip to Belfast this past weekend to play Belfast Star in the Basketball Ireland Premier League.
The Connemara men were hoping to bounce back from a tough loss against DCU Saints the weekend before and they came out with all guns blazing in the 1st quarter with Paul Freeman leading the charge when he went on a personal 8-2 run against Star to start the game. When the Northerners got to grips with Freeman, it was Raheem Lemons who stepped up to lead the scoring for Moycullen. Star did get back into the game during the quarter to leave 1 between the teams after the first 10 minutes. A highlight of the 1st quarter for Moycullen was the introduction of Patrick Lyons for the first time since November in what has been an injury ravaged year for him
Another great display from 19 Year Old Joseph Tummon against Star in his rookie season
A blistering start from Star to the 2nd saw Moycullen soon down 10 points but the two youngest players on the court combined for some great scores to help Moycullen weather the sever Northern storm; a great assist from Kyle Cunningham to Joseph Tummon under the basket followed by a tough Cunningham and-1 saw the deficit reduced to just 3 by the half.
The 3rd quarter started off nip & tuck but midway through the quarter Star had build up a 13 point lead and things didn’t look good for the men from the West. However, some outstanding individual play from James Loughnane & Dylan Cunningham saw the lead brought back to only 3 points and it was certainly all to play for with 10 minutes to go.
18 Year Old Kyle Cunningham who continues to have a super rookie Premier League season
The 4th quarter was a cracker with never more than a few points between the teams but Moycullen were able to gradually edge ahead through Lemons, Dylan & Kyle Cunningham and Freeman and with 2 minutes to go the lead was up to 5 points. A nervous last 2 minutes for the team saw Star throw everything that they had at Moycullen but they hung on for a hugely impressive win.
Raheem Lemons continues to impress for the team since his arrival just after Christmas and once again he topped scored for Moycullen with an excellent all round performance of 21 points and 15 rebounds. Since Lemons was added to the team they have been playing some great basketball and the US player has certainly settled in extremely well with the team
SSE Airtricity play their final home game this Saturday 5th March when they host Swords Thunder in the Kingfisher with a 7pm tip-off. They will be hoping to reverse the result from when the two sides met in December when the Dublin team got the upper-hand and with their current form they will certainly be very close to doing just that
Raheem Lemons 21, Dylan Cunningham 17, Paul Freeman 15, Kyle Cunningham 11, Joseph Tummon 6, James Loughnane 5, Patrick Lyons 1, Nollaig Cunningham
Categories: Men's Superleague, Mens, News
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