Ladies Football

U16 Girls Quarter-Final

All Saints 5-8 Lamh Dearg 2-6

All Saints, Ballymena recorded a hard fought championship victory on Saturday over a very talented and determined Lamh Dhearg side at Quinn Park.

Winning by a scoreline of 5-08 to 2-06 the girls had the better of the first half exchanges with some excellent passages of play leading to some finely taking scores by Maria Sestakova, Laura McAleese and Sianeese Maybin.

Outstanding defensive play by Niamh McMahon, Sinead McGarry, Maria O’Rawe, Mollie O’Brien, Oonagh Donaghy and Orla Magill was the platform on which many of the scores were taken as time and again the determined Ballymena girls were able to break up the fast Lamh Dhearg attacks. Blaithain O’Kane, Anna Hassan and Brenda McGuigan all put in a good first half performance to see the girls leading at half time.

The Hannastown girls came out all guns blazing in the second half and took some lovely scores but as the game wore on the relentless running from Molly Brady in Midfield and some brilliant saves from Sinead Devine in the All Saints nets set up the girls for a good finale. Maria Sestakova, Laura McAleese, Sianeese Maybin and Roisin Ward all made good breaks late in the second half resulting in good scores which enabled the Slemish Park girls to see out the challenge. Catherine McBride put her time on the pitch to good use by breaking up some key passages of play, Kara McLaughlin ended up coming off the bench to set up 1-01 and Bronagh McHugh steadied things up when she came on. All in all a very pleasing performance but much to work on for the semi- final. Thanks to all who came out to support the girls, much appreciated and also to Anthony Carleton for officiating the game for us.