Juvenile joy for handballers at Croke Park

OVER St Patrick’s weekend, Tyrone juvenile handballers travelled to Croke Park to represent their clubs and county in the All-Ireland Finals.

Emma Conway, from Greencastle, who has dominated her age category this year added the U14 All Ireland title to her collection after recently winning the Junior Nationals. She defeated Angel Cronin Kenny from Wexford convincingly.

Emma’s clubmates Grace Teague and Aimee Fox unfortunately fell short in the U14 Doubles final against Kilkenny’s Shauna Doherty and Sophie McCabe.

The U15 Boys category saw all the medals come back to Tyrone. Sean Donnelly (Carrickmore) and doubles partners Marcus Conway and Aaron McElhone (Greencastle and Carrickmore) claimed their golds after defeating Roscommon opposition in tie break deciders.

Tyrone U17 also dominated at top level with both the Girls and Boys doubles winning alongside the Boys singles.

Carrickmore’s Shea Munroe, who has also had a fantastic year, added to his Junior National victory beating Rory Goff (Wexford) in two games.

Oisin Kelly and Cahir Owens, both from Breacach club, came up against Sean Morrissey and Dan McCormack from Kilkenny. The boys played fantastically and won in two games.

The last game of the day was the U17 pairing of Cara McCrory and Laura Delaney (Breacach and Pomeroy). The girls played well and denied their Kilkenny opponents victory in two games.

Niamh O’Gara and Katie Marley (Pomeroy and Carrickmore) almost pushed it to a tie break, but unfortunately couldn’t get over the line and settled for runners-up spot against Kilkenny.

Well done to all of the players. Great to see the County so well represented at the highest level.