Blue Demons U17 Boys did themselves proud over the past couple of days as they exceeded all expectations by making it to the prestigious Billy Kelly U17 Tournament semi final in what was a very exciting tournament. Our lads started with a hard fought win against Fr. Mathews (46-41). Next up were a very fancied Dublin Lions team but our lads put in a great second half performance to win convincingly(48-40) that really gave our lads great confidence. Our third game was against Dublin side Tolka Rovers and our lads had a great start to build a strong lead and maintained that lead throughout to win 60-31.

The final pool game was a really tough battle for our lads and trailed at the end of the 1st qtr(9-12) and  2nd qtrs. (22-23). The 3rd qtr saw a real push from our lads with some great offensive scores to get out in front (40-35). The 4th quarter was again a tight affair but some very good outside shooting kept us in front to win 54-43 and guarantee top spot in the pool after 4 wins out of 4.

The quarter final took place on Saturday morning against a very well drilled Malahide team before a good attendance in the Parochial Hall. Demons trailed 11-9 at the end of the first and had a narrow lead at half time(20-19).  Demons really needed everybody to chip in for the 3rd quarter as foul trouble kicked it but we managed to extend our lead to 37-30. The final quarter was very tight but our lads hit some real pressure shots down the stretch to win 49-41 after an incredible effort from all.

In the semi final, we played a very strong team from Killorglin who played a very good brand of basketball and Demons couldn’t get any tempo and trailed 23-13 at the end of the first and 34-18 at half time. Killorglin stretched the lead to 45-28 with no shots dropping for our lads. Demons gave it their all in the final quarter and managed to reduce the lead to 8 points after a very brave effort but Killorglin ran out winners 59-45.

Our lads can be extremely proud of their efforts over this weekend as it was essentially 90% made up of U16 players. Thanks to Coaches Dee Looney and Shane McCarthy for driving the team over the weekend and thanks to Dave Lehane and Shane Coughlan for all their efforts in prepping the team and hopefully we will see another great weekend next weekend as our lads will play in the U16 AICC.

Thanks to everybody who came out to support the team over the weekend.

Well done Lads! It was great to see some great Demons spirit on the court over the weekend!