By Dearbhla O Reilly

By Dearbhla O’Reilly

Wednesday the 18th of November, the day in which Moate U-16 Ladies Basketball team performed amazingly against Kildare Town Community School in The Leinster Quarter Finals.

From the throw-in the girls persevered and showed everyone just how good they really were. The Moate girls knew how important this Leinster Quarter-Final was and the determination was clear on all of their faces. The starting team was Laura Caballero, Mary Harkin, Miriam Gomez, Silvia Mendiluce and Eva Casado.

Kildare managed to win the first score, however this was their only score of the first quarter. Moate responded by scoring five points and in the process tightened up their defence. The quarter time whistle blew up and the team was back to talk tactics with their coach Mr. Niall Daly and Mrs. Colette Kearney. Moate racked up five more scores in the 2 nd quarter and only allowed Kildare to score once. An unfortunate injury meant that Miriam Gomez had to be replaced by Roisin Ennis. Roisin debuted by scoring in the first minutes of the 3rd quarter followed by Mary Harkin scoring twice. Kildare again only managed to score once in this quarter.

The Moate girls performed excellently until the very end and managed to obtain three more baskets from Mary, Eva and Silvia, before the final whistle of the 4 th quarter. In the final minutes, Mary Harkin went down injured and was replaced by Carmel Carroll. Sheer delight was seen on the faces of all the players when the final whistle was blown and they realised that they secured a place in the Leinster Semi-Finals. The final score was Moate 21 Kildare 9.

Team: Laura Caballero, Mary Harkin, Miriam Gomez, Silvia Mendiluce, Eva Casado Roisin Ennis, Alba Gutierrez, Carmel Carroll, Sarah Murphy, Therese Geoghegan, Aine Healy and Jenny Fox.

Scorers: Eva Casado-6 Mary Harkin-6 Laura Caballero-4 Silvia Mendiluce-3 Roisin Ennis-2