Congratulations to Sarah O’Regan who was rewarded for her hard work and dedicated preparation with a bronze medal at the Lifesaving Intervarsity tournament in Ballyshannon last Friday. Part of a team containing Val Walsh, Tony Dijon and Nadine Ivors who acquitted themselves extremely well, Sarah came home third in the 100 metres to claim the first medal for the college at this event.

Now in her second year, Sarah has made a great impact on sports in the college. The recipient of a Students Union Sponsored Sports Scholarship, she is an integral part of the Gaelic Football and Soccer teams. As well as playing she assists in coaching the basketball team, and the hard work she puts in at the swimming pool is not restricted to her own training as she helps train beginners in both swimming and lifesaving. Along with her passion for horses, she manages to keep highly involved in the colleges outdoor clubs especially kayaking. How she manages to keep it all going is a mystery but there is no doubt that she is worthy of her success and everyone at the college congratulates her.

The other big winners this week were the hurlers, who never even stepped onto the field. Awaiting the result of the tied group they found out that they will indeed be advancing to the playoffs and are lined up for a game against the winners of the southern group University College Cork, Limerick or Tralee after Christmas. This will give them time to further their preparations as Coach Kevin O’Connor (who has overseen an incredible transformation in the team’s fortunes) continues a rigorous schedule of training and challenge games. It will also give Mayo county star Ger Whyte a chance to recover form his recent appendix operation, everyone sends their best wishes to Ger for a speedy recovery.

The footballers won’t have any playoffs to look forward to as they finished their league campaign with a disappointing home defeat to St Pats of Drumcondra. While not happy with their performance the lads are still looking forward to the upcoming Trench cup as this team were beaten finalists last year and Castlebar know that they are capable of a much better performance than they showed on this occasion.

The camogie team is still in search of their first win, but the run of competitive games are doing them the world of good as they show massive improvement with each game. Last Thursday saw them undertake the long trip to Coleraine to play the Universityof Ulster. While the Northern girls were ultimately too strong it was a great game with some outstanding performances. Not least of these were the mid-field duo of Aishling Ni Griofa and Maeve Murphy who completely dominated this area. Maeve’s strong running and determined blocking was exceptional while Aishling won everything that came her way as well as managing to break forward to score two fine goals. This domination as well as the superb defensive performances of Sinead Greene, Jane Waters, Breege Patterson and Ruth Kelly, could have been the basis for a first victory but some of the newer players are still settling in and they struggled to convert the hard won possession to scores. Coleraine on the other hand had a very strong all-round team and they maximized every opportunity especially their centre half forward whose performance was breathtaking. Maureen Coleman came under severe pressure in Goal but her heroics there definitely warranted the outstanding player award, as some of her saves were amazing.

Winding down to Christmas most fixtures have been fulfilled at this stage but there is one big issue to be resolved. The women’s Gaelic footballers take on their Galway counterparts in the Connaught decider to see who will go forward to the national semi-finals after Christmas. The Galway girls will be slight favourites but if everything comes together on the day there may be a surprise in store.

After the success of last year’s tournament, everyone is looking forward to this year's G.M.I.T Fives – the annual indoor soccer competition. No doubt competition will be fierce as ever, anyone wishing to enter a team should pick up an application form from the Sports Office before the Christmas break.