St. Louis Grammar School, Kilkeel 4-04 St. Patrick’s Girls Academy, Dungannon o-oo

The girls from St. Louis Grammar School, Kilkeel, have shown that its not only the footballers that can make the headlines on the sporting fields of Ulster. The school’s Camogie team, coached by Rosemary Colgan, powered their way into the Ulster Junior final at the expense of St. Patrick’s Girls Academy, Dungannon. The game was played on the excellent surface provided by Sherry’s Field in Armagh, very rare for this time of year. Although the goalmouths were a bit muddy, the play flowed quite freely and allowed both teams to display an excellent range of skills.

The Kilkeel girls’ imposed themselves on this game right from the start. However, the Tyrone schools defence had to play well and showed plenty of courage and skill in face of the Kilkeel onslaught, denying the Mourne girls scores on a number of occasions. Eventually, the St. Louis attack broke through and opened the scoring with a point from a free through Joanne Fitzpatrick. Joanne added to further points before half-time, whilst Dungannon struggled to get beyond the St. Louis 65. A more resolute effort prior to the break came from St. Patrick’s with Sarah-Ann Smyth, in the Kilkeel goals, pulling off some fine saves to deny the Tyrone girls.

The Kilkeel half back trio of Niamh Cunningham, Carol-Anne Sloan and Colleen Haughian soaked all the Tyrone pressure with great style and confidence. However, St. Louis needed more scores and would surely have preferred to be in a better position at the end of the half, but their dominance was not truly reflected on the scoreboard. As the second-half began, it was soon clear that a renaissance of fortunes was not on the cards for the Tyrone school. Joanne Fitzpatrick soon settled things down a bit as she scored a point from another free.

Good pressure from Kerrie White forced the Dungannon ‘keeper into an error to put Kilkeel in the position they should have been in earlier, with a finely struck goal. With inspirational St. Louis captain Lisa Hughes dominating the play, a second Kilkeel goal soon arrived through Deborah Doran. With St. Louis in total control in most areas of the field, a long range effort from Carol Anne Sloan came off the upright and fell nicely into the path of Stephanie O’Hare, who pounced on the rebound with the predatory instincts of all good forwards, slotted in goal number three for the Mourne girls.

The fourth and final goals capped off a fine individual effort from Joanne Fitzpatrick, who proved she has more to her game than just hitting the frees. For their part, St. Patrick’s played the game in a very sport fashion and threatened the St. Louis defence more times than the score-line would suggest. The were notable performances from Emma McAliskey, Emma McErlane, Emma Fitzgerald and keeper, Eimear Fitzgerald. St. Louis now progress to the Ulster Junior Camogie Final, where they will meet St. Patrick’s High School, Keady, this coming Saturday. The Kilkeel forwards will need to seize upon every opportunity to prevail against a fairly confident and talented Armagh team. Although the Kilkeel defence seemed comfortable against Dungannon, the Armagh girls will ask more questions of the Kilkeel defence, who would need to be watertight.

However, this St. Louis team have the ability to take this title, but are under no illusions of the extent of the effort needed to be victorious on Saturday 5th February. St. Louis match with Keady will be played this coming Saturday as part of a double-bill of Ulster Colleges Camogie finals, as the game will be followed by the Junior A Final between St. Mary’s, Magherafelt and Cross and Passion of Ballycastle. The throw-in for the St. Louis game is 12 noon and will be played in Derrytresk, Co. Tyrone.

Anyone thinking of travelling to the game should check with St. Louis before 3.40 on Friday, in case of any last minute venue switches.

St. Louis Team;
Sarah.Ann Smyth (Longstone), Nicola Curran (Attical), Aine O’Reilly (An Riocht), Sinead Colgan (Attical), Niamh Cunningham (An Riocht), Carol Ann Sloan (Attical), Colleen Haughian (Longstone), Laura Brennan (An Riocht), Stephanie O’Hare (Attical), Lisa Hughes Captain (An Riocht, Joanne Fitzpatrick (Attical), Asling Clarke (An Riocht), Sara Rogers (Attical)., Deborah Doran (Attical), Kerrie White (An Riocht), Martina Rooney (An Riocht), Natasha Daryaie (Warrenpoint), Louise Murphy (An Riocht)