By 
BOTH Holy Trinity Cookstown and St.Ciaran’s Ballgawley are through to the semi-finals of the Ulster Schools MacLarnon Cup and Markey Cup respectively after each produced fine displays of attacking football in their quarter-final clashes over recent days.
St.Ciaran’s had to pull out all the stops in the Markey Cup to edge the verdict against St.Mark’s Warrenpoint in a cracking encounter. It was close throughout the sixty odd minutes with the Tyrone lads just doing enough to take the verdict on a 2-11 to 2-10 scoreline.
Star of the show up front for the winners was Tyrone All Ireland U20 winner Shea McDermott who was in outstanding form. He notched both of his side’s goals while adding eight points for good measure. Mickey McDermott landed a brace of points with Conall Shevlin the other St.Ciaran’s marksman on the day.
Odhran McGeary, Elliot Kerr and Miceal Mullin stood out in the St.Ciaran’s defence with the latter a constant threat when driving forward at every opportunity from the half back line.
Darren McAnespie was excellent in midfield while Jude Curran and Shevlin worked tirelessly in the half forward line in support of the inform McDermott.
On Tuesday afternoon a blistering start for Holy Trinity in Belfast against Rathmore helped pave the way for a fine 3-16 to 2-15 victory.
The Cookstown school couldn’t have wished for a better start to the game as they confidently went about their business. Shea Raffertyy opened the scoring inside sixty seconds and after Karol Wawrynkiewicz had converted a two point free Jamie Concannon, Darragh Muldoon, Ruairi O’Neill and Wawrynkiewicz again all raised white flags fto establish a 0-8 to 0-0 advantage by the 10th minute.
Two quickfire points from lively corner forward Joe Logan got Rathmore up and running and in the 16th minute it was game on when midfielder Conor Friel crashed the ball to the net. O’Neill and Yasin Baba landed points for Holy Trinity before Ciaran McKeown got their first goal in the 26th minute.
Aodhan O’Hanlon and centre half back Jack Heatherington replied with Rathmore points but just before halftime Jack Muldoon scored Holy Trinity’s second major to leave them leading 2-9 to 1-4.
Baba had the opening score of the second half but back came Rathmore with a two pointer from Logan. Cookstown continued to look the better side as Jack Muldoon scored a brace but they were then dealt a blow when midfielder Baba was black carded.
Midfielder Donnacha McGurk immediately reduced the deficit with a two pointer but at the end of the third quarter Muldoon crucially found the net for the second time.
Darragh Muldoon tagged on a pointer before Christopher Robb and O’Neill raised orange flags for their respective sides. Holy Trinity looked comfortable but then Rathmore enjoyed a purple patch with Robb scoring twice, Logan getting a two pointer and Ronan Taylor also on target.
McKeown stopped the rot for Holy Trinity and while Rathmore had the final say with a goal deep into injury time from Liam Carson it came to late as the Tyrone lads booked their last four ticket.
