All Ireland Colleges Success For Tyrone Schools

Tuesday 13.02.2018

Club

Tyrone students were among the major title winners at the All Ireland colleges championships last weekend in Kingscourt with Loreto Grammar School and Omagh CBS both securing gold medals.
Mairead Fox produced some brilliant form to capture the girls junior singles title for Loreto with impressive victories over the Munster and Leinster champions.
In her semi final tie she saw off the challenge of Amber Nolan from Scariff Community college in County Clare, and then in the final Mairead had to dig deep to beat one of the rising stars of girls handball, Kilkenny’s Amy Brennan, in a thrilling encounter.
Mairead eventually recorded a 15-9, 15-12 victory after a high quality match against the Castlecomer Community School representative. The loughmacrory girl will be eligible for the same grade again for another year which makes her achievement even more noteworthy.
Mairead’s brother Antoin teamed up with Carrickmore’s Lorcan McBride to bring another All Ireland colleges title to Omagh CBS on Saturday.
The brothers’ duo have enjoyed a magnificent run of doubles success in colleges handball and they powered to a convincing win over Kilkenny pair Kyle Dunne and Billy O’Neill to collect another intermediate doubles title.
Their semi final clash with the Clare pairing of Mark Rodgers and Seanie Doyle proved to be a tougher test but they eventually cruised to victory 15-3 in the tiebreaker after being pegged back in the second game.
Antoin and Lorcan have become a really formidable doubles team on the colleges circuit in recent years and have chalked up a lot of national success at this stage.
Meanwhile Dean Maguirc College in Carrickmore were also represented in two grades at the All Ireland colleges championships on Saturday.
Ciaran Cuddy lost out to eventual winner Tiernan Agnew in the senior singles semi final, while Cloda Munroe and Clodagh McNamee bowed out at the semi final stage of the girls junior doubles to Clare.