Coach Jack Consodine , who has given of his time for three years now to this fine group of young men, put aside the disappointment of the previous day’s National Championship final to refocus his concentration in the Best Interests of this Titan Flagship Team!
This U17Boys league was introduced by the Galway Juvenile Board this season to continue the great competition between the Moycullen/Maree/Corrib and Titans 1996’ers which began four years ago and has led to so much enjoyment for so many followers of the competitive game, with never more than a point between them.
As in the season of 2011 when we lost the wonderful Claregalway side from the league, this season saw the loss of the Corrib lads with the local gamehungry boys inviting Ballina, Kiltimagh and Limerick to fill the void in their highly successful Triadic-Tournament Format. They were not disappointed as there followed, competition and closely contested games, in abundance. But this season was a little different than previous, as Titans u17’s began to establish themselves as the emerging GREATS atop of the ’96 pile!
The Game between allbeit a younger yet established Maree side and the Titan Bigboys was in every sense of the word a fantastic spectacle in front of an educated and appreciative Basketball audience of 200 enthusiastists.
Maree’s Riann Maher and the former boardsmen of Claregalway contested every board..there were no free rebounds, loadsa contact and physicality, with Ben Ntumba, Dale Creaven, Ronan and Johnathan Pesaitis, checking, pullin down bigbounds and turning every defense to offence, showing true mastery of the Transition game! But just as Bin Ling Chen and Tomas Donovan controlled the tempo and ran the floor, so too, former Titan Liam Egan, Charlie Crowley and Eoin Rockall teased and tortured their opponents waiting to launch some of their magnificent threes to keep in touch in the game. At one stage in the second half the Titans were up ten points but Maree tied it all up in the third at 34-34. In the fourth the momentum was with the Oranmore men and Titans stayed in touch with some excellent inside moves from Pesaitis and Creaven and a nice touch from Ronan Higgins. Chen and Mossey were always a danger and found the basket, just as Ronan Mc Keown and Oisin had in the first half. Although the lead changed hands on four more occasions the Titans trailed by 4pts in the last minute, nobody was leaving. With both teams in foul trouble you always felt that the winning of this game might yet be in the hands of the better foul shooter and that’s exactly what happened. With 2 seconds left on the clock, Titans Man of the Match Johnathan Pesaitis was sent to the line for two shots with his team trailing by one point. Not a sound was heard from the capacity crowd, he hits the first..the crowd erupts..( overtime perhaps?) before a momentary lull while the young man with ice in his veins, drops another, uninterrupted rock.. through the bottom of the net…and barring the ensuing court invasion and resultant assault from his exuberant teammates…the rest is history! and even Historic! Yes, Titans had Won an” A FINAL” and done so, in style against a team with pedigree. Go Titans!
The Titans u17’s are Competing next weekend in the prestigious Billy Kelly Tournament in Cork..we wish them and their Coach Jack Consodine continued success and thank them for all the joy they are bringing to their fellow Clubmates
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