Under 21 Hurling Championship – quarter final
Ballycastle 1-11 Cushendall 2-17
Cushendall turned in a strong display when they beat Ballycastle in Monday evening’s Under 21 Hurling quarter final at Pairc MacUílin. The Ruairis were dominant for most of the game and they lead by five points at half time (1-09 to 0-07). The trend continued in the second half and though Ballycastle battled hard but they lacked the scoring power of their opponents who went on to win by nine in the end.
Top scorer Joseph McLaughlin opened Cushendall’s account in the second minute and though Conor Donnelly soon had Ballycastle back on terms. four points in a row, two from Fiontan Bradley and one each by Joseph McLaughlin and Oran McCambridge, saw the visitors put a bit of daylight between the sides. It was score for score over the next ten minutes, before points from Padraig McKillop and Fiontan Bradley stretched the Ruairi Og lead to six.
Ballycastle hit back with four in a row, three of them from Craoisti McAuley and one from Conor Donnelly to cut the deficit back to one, but Joseph McLaughlin sent one over from a sideline ‘cut’ and one from a free to put Cushendall three ahead at the interval.
Cushendall struck a telling blow early in the second half and after Joseph McLaughlin had increased the lead to four Oran McCambridge struck the first goal of the game to stretch his team’s lead to seven. Cadhan Crawford pulled one back for the Town but two more from Joseph McLaughlin frees put the gap out to eight by the end of the third quarter.
The home team hit three of the next four points, two of them from Crawford and one from Conor Donnelly, but three in a row from the McLaughlin brothers Joseph and Thomas and one from Callagh Mooney virtually sealed the deal. Conor Donnelly gave Ballycastle a glimmer of hope when he fired home a goal three minutes from time, but it was a case of too little, too late as Cushendall pushed on to a semi-final meeting Glenariffe/Glenravel in a week’s time.
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