Mens U20s League R3
Neptune 96
Garvey’s Tralee Warriors 72
Garvey’s Tralee Warriors Mens U20s suffered their first defeat of their League campaign going down by 96-73 in the curtain raiser to the Super League contest between the sides at Neptune Stadium on Saturday.
An understrength Warriors side without the services of amongst others Ryan Sheehy and David Lucid started brightly and led midway through the first with Jamie Burke, Samson Abubakar, Seán Cantwell and Liam O’Rahilly all on the mark to put the visitors 17-12 up but Neptune went on run in reply with 22 unanswered points from scores from Pharell Osagie, Wesley Delany, Dylan O’Rourke and Akitoye Coker and only a late Cantwell basket stopped the Neptune run with the hosts 36-19 up at quarter time.
The Warriors shaded the second quarter in a much more competitive spell but Neptune did make the better start with Coker, Ben O’Connell and Luke Walsh on the mark to push the lead out to 23. However Warriors replied in kind with scores from Burke and Abubakar from inside and when both Cantwell and Rahilly landed from distance the half time gap was down to 51-39.
Neptune began to get the upper hand in the game early in the third with baskets from Noah Vaicekonis, O’Connell, Osagie and Welsey Delany’s third of his ten threes in the game putting daylight between the teams. However Kiefer Yiadom hit a quickfire five points quickly followed by Conor Galvin and a double from Jamie Burke to cut the advantage to 13. Delany then chose his moment to land an impressive four dagger three pointers in a row to blow out the score to 78-56 at the end of the third.
Two scores each from Delany and Coker edged Neptune further ahead but at the other end Abubakar, Galvin and Rahilly were still scoring and keeping the home side honest. Delany struck twice from distance to round out a great display of shooting while Warriors finished with a quick run of the last five scores of the game shared between Yiadom and Burke to leave the final score reading 96-73.
Scorers:
Neptune: Wesley Delany 36, Akitoye Coker 19, Pharrell Osagie 12
Garvey’s Tralee Warriors: Jamie Burke 18, Laim Rahilly 16, Kiefer Yiadom 13, Seán Cantwell and Samson Abubakar 11
Next up for the Warriors is a local derby clash with keen rivals St. Mary’s Castleisland on Saturday next at 3.00pm in Moyderwell Gym in Tralee.