Varsities

The DKIT basketball team took part in the 56th all Ireland Varsities last
week. The tournament began on Wednesday the fourth of march and went on in
to the weekend. The team were playing in the B division and had four other
teams in their group with Griffith College, Letterkenny IT, NUIM and UUC.

The first game was against Griffith College on the Wednesday and Dundalk
took full advantage of fact that this was the Dublin team's first ever
varsities by winning 31-15. The second game was played on Thursday morning
against UUC. Although Dundalk went on to win the game by six points 44-38
this game was most note worthy for the loss of one of D Kit's star players
Darren McGovern who went out with a torn calf which sidelined him for the
rest of the tournament. NUIM were the next team and buoyant on the
previous two victories DKIT again put in a brave display and came away
with the points running out 48-44 winners. It had been a close game but
with hard work from Gerard Cunningham Stephen Nolan,Brian O'Donnell and
Zhang Chen Dundalk got the win they deserved.
Dundalk were now 3-0 and standing at the top of the group with Letterkenny
IT left to play. Confidence was high even if The players were a bit tired
and on Thursday evening the game began. Dundalk went in to an early lead
and by half time were 13 points up. But the men from Letterkenny came back
in the third quarter to level the game. Lack of concentration on defence
eventually cost Dundalk the game with Letterkenny winning 62-50. At this
time three teams were 3-1, DKIT, LYIT and UUC. It now came down to points
to see which team would progress to the semi-finals.
Friday morning the team got the word. DKIT had finished third due to point
difference. The loss to LYIT had been too great so UUC and LYIT progressed
and Dundalk were left to play the garda college in a standings match.
After a tough game the garda college managed to break the DKIT defence and
come our the winners by four points.
Overall a better result then last years one win however every player from
the team knew that the final was well within their grasp but it was not to
be Dundalk's year. So all that is now left to do is to prepare for next
years and to learn from mistakes made.

The schedule

So here is the schedule. We are leaving at 15:30 I think and heading down to Dublin checking in to the hotel that night.
The fixtures are as follows
Wednesday
20:30 DKIT Vs Griffith

Thursday
09:00 UUC Vs DKIT
16:30 DKIT Vs NUIM
19:30 DKIT Vs LYIT

Then depending on how those results go will decide if and where we are playing on the Friday and then if we win we play on the saturday.It should be fun. It will be hard.

Training Day!!!!

So we had a proper training game on Thursday. One team was coached by Peter our coach and the other team was coached by Darren. The teams were as follows
Team 1:
Tim
Tommy
Big John
Brian
Gonzo
Mason
Sam
Peter

The A-Team:
Darren
Adam
Andy
Stephen
Neo
Henry
Brian
Gerry

Team one had three possibly four players from the starting five for the varsities. and for the first quarter they led 16-11. This lead however was very short lived. The A-team decided that we were going to give up the idea of a man-to-man defence and move to a two-one-two zone defence. This as expected was the turning point. By the end of the first half thanks to fast breaks and some great steals the A-Team led by the end of the second quater 35-21. Some great link up plays between the Darren Andy and Gerry ground down the moral on team 1 and thanks to some great link up play between Henry and Stephen even more points were taken.
Team 1 grew more and more frustrated and this was visible from the sounds coming from their bench which only made the A-Team more confident. Thanks to a great defence, excellent team work and sheer balls to the walls determination with a work rate A-Team went out eventual winners 78-61.
Bragging rights have well and truly being gained.
Everybody is in good spirits leading up to the tournement now and there is an air of cautious optimism about the team. We look forward to wednesday and the begining of the Varisities.