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From Castlebar - County Mayo - GMIT Sports
Following the Christmas break and January exams the Championship and Intervarsity season kicked off last weekend (Jan 27th & 28th) and it would be hard to imagine a more successful start to the campaign for the College.
First on the calendar was the IUABA Boxing Intervarsities held in the Mardyke Arena UCC on Friday & Saturday 26th & 27th. The team had been in serious training and hopes were high of bringing home some medals. These hopes were dealt a serious blow with the late withdrawal of both Noel Higgins and Thomas McHale-Roe. This left Jimmy Gruddy as the only remaining hope for success. Jimmy did not disappoint and when the dust had settled on the contest Jimmy was on his way home with a Gold medal.
As a result of this victory in the cruiser weight division Jimmy, who fights out of the Golden Gloves club in Belmullet, will now go on to represent Ireland in the Four nations In Glasgow in April. He is disappointed that neither of his teammates will be joining him, as he knew that they were both serious medal contenders before their forced withdrawals. Jimmy’s training regime, which had been strenuous, will be stepped up even further now as he prepares for the honour of representing his country, and everyone at the college wishes him every success in his quest for international glory.
On Sunday the next event on the national calendar was the Women’s Soccer (WSCAI) indoor intervarsities in the University Of Limerick. This year the competition adopted the rules of Futsal and indeed it made for a more entertaining spectacle. The girls were defending the “ plate “ trophy that they had proudly captured while flying the flag for GMIT Castlebar in 2006. This year the team was a rare example of cross campus teams coming together and it was a combination of both the Castlebar & Galway teams.
The girls have cooperated on various occasions down through the years and the transition to one playing force was seamless as they thundered out of the blocks with a 4-1 win over UCC “B” – the only hiccup in their group stages was 0-1 reversal at the hands of UCD “B”. Other than that they accounted for: UCD “A” 2-1, I.T Sligo 1-0, University Of Limerick “B” 1-0 before a 1-1 draw with Trinity saw them safely into the plate semi-final. Sinead Mulkerrin, Jessica Greene, Gillian Joyce & Lorraine O’Connor were all among the goals in the group stages, while Mary Bourke & Tina Hughes shared the goalkeeping duties. A great deal of the credit for the excellent defensive record of only 4 goals conceded in 6 games goes to the stout defending of the experienced Louise Mulready as well as Christina Shreridan, Charlene Cronin & Brenda Quinn.
The semi-finals saw them pitted against UCC “ A” and goals from Jessica and Gillian sealed a comprehensive 2-0 victory. Near neighbours and fierce rivals I.T Sligo were the opposition in the Final and it looked like a goal from Jess was going to be enough to steal an extremely tense and tight game, Sligo to their credit never gave in and brought the game to penalties with a goal in the dying seconds. Tina Hughes played a heroes part by saving two and scoring her own, while Jess who had been the top scorer throughout was incredibly unlucky to see her effort come back off the post. It was a fitting end that with Sligo scoring their third penalty it fell to Louise Mulready to take the decisive Spot kick.
Louise was forced to watch from the sidelines last year as she coached the winning team, so it was all the sweeter for her as she dispatched what was the clinching penalty and started the celebrations as the girls brought home a National title for the second year in a row.
The second weekend of national events includes the Handball Intervarsities In Cavan. There are strong hopes of increasing the medal haul with Dara Reid from Newport and Ciaran Cuddy from Claremorris looking to build on their Silver medal in the team event achieved last November.
The men’s GAA team have finalised their preparations for the championship and look like being at full strength for their trip to Colaiste Ide in Dublin for the Corn Na Macleinn on Feb 7th. This year’s crop of players have worked extremely hard and have a lot of talent on display and will be hoping to overcome the Dublin outfit and hopefully embark on a championship crusade. There are a lot of mayo players pushing for places in the starting line-up with Sean Kenny of Swinford likely to start at centre half back and Martin Coyle of Kiltane making a strong case for a corner back birth. The Burrishroole trio of Michael Joyce, David Nevin and Dara Reid all look set to start, providing David recovers from an ankle injury, while Daniel Loftus of Ballintubber made enough of an impact during his introduction as Sub in a recent challenge game to pose some headaches for the selectors Billy McNicholas & David Hussey.
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