Ballincollig 88 (45)

Moycullen 53 (28)

Moycullen will undoubtedly be looking forward to the comforts of home heading into a stretch of home games to finish their season following a brutal road trip to COrk that ended in a comprehensive 88 to 53 defeat at the hands of hosts Ballincollig.

The league leaders (who have lost only once in the league all season) jumped straight out on top of Moycullen with Irish international point guard Adrian O’Sullivan leading the charge for the men from the rebel county.

While baskets from Grant Olsson, Kyle Cunningham and Niall Bree were registered for Moycullen, Ballincollig were irresistible in the opening quarter and established a 24 to 12 point lead at the period’s end.

Worryingly for Moycullen, five separate Ballincollig players had contributed to their impressive early tally just shy of a quarter century with O’Sullivan netting six of his game high twenty points in the opener.

Moycullen steadied the ship somewhat in the second period and long range three pointers scored by Olsson, Dylan Cunningham and recent Sigerson cup winning star Eoghan Kelly saw their offence flow a little better, resulting in 16 points scored in quarter. 

There was no stopping the fast flowing Ballincollig attack however and their import duo of American Andre Nation and Slovenian Milorad Sedlarevic began to truly stamp their imprint on the game with a series of fine scores that extended the Ballincollig lead to 45 against 28 at the halftime break.

At this juncture, Moycullen could have been forgiven for throwing in the towel and turning their sights towards an upcoming three game home stretch. To their credit however, they fought to claw back the league leaders on their home turf as James Lyons, Bree and Kevin Nugent all made fine contributions.

A well organised and increasingly stingy zone defence from Ballincollig was hampering Moycullen finding any scoring flow however and returns of just 11 and 14 points from the third and fourth quarter reflected the home side’s dominance on that end.

Meanwhile, Ballincollig’s attacking prowess showed no signs of abating as they clocked up 23 and 20 points over the final two periods respectively, to win all four quarters and finish with a comprehensive and well deserved 88 ro 53 victory.

Moycullen will dust themselves off and hope that the return to Galway to conclude the season will be the tonic required. That stint had been scheduled to start Saturday  (26 February) against Cork City’s Neptune but with that game now postponed Moycullen’s next game is Sunday 6 March at 3pm in NUIG Sports Arena when they take on NUIG themselves.

Moycullen Scorers: Grant Olsson (19), Kyle Cunningham (12), Eoghan Kelly (5), James Lyons (5), Niall Bree (5), Dylan Cunningham (3), Kevin Nugent (3), Ayberk Taylan (3), Rory O’Sullivan.

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