Tipperary Titans U14s reach All Ireland club basketball championships

Tipp Titans U14 Basketball Reach All Ireland Club Championships

The Clonmel-based Tipp Titans basketball U14 Boys competed at the top level of Irish basketball recently, winning four out of five games played in the All-Ireland series, eventually losing to the overall champions Limerick Celtics.

The All Ireland Club Championships brought together the 25 best U14 boys teams from across the country to Gormanstown, Co. Meath for an intense weekend of basketball.  Tipp Titans qualified by being one of the top two teams in the South-East region league, along with Carlow.  

The weekend pool games started early on the Saturday morning against a hotly fancied Limerick Lions team.  The Clonmel boys started slowly and were down by 13 points going into the third quarter, however they turned up the pressure and outscored Limerick by 16 points in the last 10 minutes of the game to win 33-30.  Adam Prout led all scorers with 10 points, with David Ahern closely behind on 8.

Tipp Titans then went on to beat Boru Blazers from Clare, and Carrick Cougars from Leitrim by 13 and 18 points respectively.  In both games the full Tipp panel stepped up and played well, with David Ahern (14 points), Owen Killen (13 points), Sean Kelly (8 points) and Aaron Prout (7 points) in particular making great shots.

The final pool game on Saturday pitched Tipp Titans against Donegal Town to decide who would top the group.  The Clonmel boys dominated from the start with excellent scores from Sean Kelly, Adam Prout and Odhran Barden, with the game finishing 41-36 in favour of Tipp Titans.

Finishing top of the group and unbeaten meant qualification for the A-Division knock-outs and a quarter-final against the strongly favoured Limerick Lions, who had dominated their pool beating the two top Dublin clubs on the way.  The Tipp boys were on the back-foot from the start, finding it very hard to manage a 6’7” giant on the Limerick team, falling behind by 17 points by half-time.  The lads made a strong comeback in the third quarter, winning it 17-12, after a fierce display by Adam Prout (14 points), but ultimately lost the game 28-52.  The Limerick Celtics went on to win the final and become All Ireland champions.

Tipp Titans, a small club relative to those in Dublin, Limerick, Cork and Belfast showed tremendous skill and fight throughout and are looking forward to going against those big clubs again in the future.