Blair and Jenkins propel Notre dame to heaven
Notre Dame 93(47) St. Vincent’s 74(33)
Eric Blair 31 Brian Tonkovich 19
Anthony Jenkins 18 Ferdinand Williams 19
David Donnelly 15 Damien Sealy 16Denny Notre Dame ended the Irish season at the summit after capturing their second title of the campaign with a 93-74 defeat of St. Vincent's in the final of the Irish Championships.
The Sprite Cup holders dominated from the start against the shell shocked holders after Damien Sealy had three consecutive baskets and a three from Ciaran Dempsey put Denny ahead 17-2 after five minutes.
Mark Keenan hit a crucial three-pointer to lift Vincent’s and Tonkovich added another one just seconds later. Williams had an excellent hoot shot from the baseline to bring Vincent’s back within 7 points of Denny.
But the fired up Notre Dame player-coach Anthony Jenkins hit back with two quick baskets without reply to extend his teams lead to 11 points, 21-10 with under four minutes remaining in the quarter.
The sides traded scores until the final minute when two inspired moves from David Donnelly cut Denny’s lead again. Denny had another turnover and Donnelly controlled proceedings before coolly taking the drive to the basket making the score on the buzzer to see Vincent’s bring it back to 7 points again, as they trailed 19-26 at the end of the quarter.
U19 star Ciaran McEvilly came into the game for Denny and scored two free throws to make it a 10 point game again. 10 points remained the gap between the sides for the first 5 minutes of the quarter as both sides kept up the pressure.
Gerry Noone was blown for a foul on Benjamin and awarded a technical for protesting with just over five minutes left in the half, and the game appeared to disintegrate after that. McGuirk shook off the attention of Blair to hit a big three with 4 minutes to go to bring the gap back to 9pts, but Blair himself hit another 9pts in the last five minutes of the half to ensure Denny a 47-33 lead at half time and bring his first half total to 21 points.
Vincent’s battled hard, but the closest they came to Denny in the third quarter was 11pts. Williams worked hard under the boards, but the speed of Dempsey and Benjamin up the court coupled with the sharp shooting of the on-form Sealy continued to give Vincent’s problems.
When Stephen McGuirk had to be subbed out with an ankle injury with 1.25 left in the third quarter, the writing was on the wall for the defending champions. Vincent’s, who were without Karl Donnelly, rallied hard in the final quarter but they were never going to threaten Denny’s lead. Denny ran out the clock to run out deserved winners with Jenkins taking the MVP award for over the three games.
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