Oblate Under 18s are shown no Mercy

THE Oblate Dynamos Girls’ Under-18 team suffered a heavy 75-42 point defeat at the hands of a rampant DCU Mercy side in their Girls’ Under-18 Dublin Cup Final in the Oblate Hall, Inchicore, on Saturday.

Despite boasting two Irish internationals and four Dub-lin team members, Dynamos found themselves over-whelmed in the first quarter.

The Drimnagh side, who are currently positioned mid-table, were well-beaten by the same opposition in the league two weeks ago, by a huge margin of 50 points.

Despite a brave performance from the homeside, that saw Mae Creane and Rachel Moore each hit nine points and Ellie Thornton total just one less, Dynamos found themselves behind by 14 at the close of the first quarter.

DCU Mercy’s Bronagh Power-Cassidy weighed in with 20 points while Rachel Huijsdens tallied 11, as Dynamos fell further adrift and were 44-23 down at the halftime break.

Yet the gap continued to widen into the third quarter, losing that period 23-9 although some respite came in the fourth quarter for the beleagured Inchicore outfit, as they narrowly lost it on a slender scoreline of 10-8. Once again, DCU Mercy were in sparkling form with Nicole Clancy and Deborah Sealy particularly impressive, with a six points apiece.

The best offensive rebounds performance of the day for Dynamos came from Thornton, while Reanne Devlin impressed in defence.

Meanwhile, for DCU Mercy, Clancy and Sealy performed their offensive and defensive rebounds duties with efficiency and no small measure of panache.

Despite suffering these two heavy defeats to a very impressive Mercy team, Dynamos have averaged 15 points per game in the league, so far, this season.

According to Dynamos Girls’ Under-18 coach, Claire Kiernan, the side should have performed a lot better in the Cup final, given that they had Irish internationals, Creane and Moore on board, in addition to Dublin panelists, Ellie Thornton, Laura Kiernan, Ellen Hughes and Claire Quinn-Nealon.

“Considering that we have a team containing players of this calibre, we should have given DCU Mercy more of a battle” insisted Kiernan. “I think that after losing the first quarter, the heads went down a bit.” she added.