Niall Mellon Trust Blitz Review

Sat April 28th, Castleknock College

Squad:
Kevin, Martinus, Rob, Turlough, John McG, Mark Doheny, Conor (on loan from Sluggers)
Angelica, Orla, Jacinta, Kristen

Review:
Just 5 teams this year, so just the one cup competition to compete for. We had a very difficult start in the morning , playing the two top teams first, Dodder Dynamoes and Marlaygades (Marlay/Renegades combo).
Both of these teams play premier division softball in Dublin.

First game against Dodder was very close, couldn't quite catch them, losing narrowly 7-5 in the end. Next up Marlaygades. This was a great performance by the team, we had them on the ropes and we took a 4 run lead into the last inning. Unfortunately Marlaygades just pipped us by one run, with a 3 run home run on 2 outs in bottom of the last. They went unbeaten for the day, winning out against Dodder in the final.

That was us more or less out of the running for the final. But we had 2 more games to try to get to 3/4th playoff, against Castleknock I and Castleknock II. Unfortunately we ended up losing both of these games and finished bottom. Still a positive start to the season.

Training starts tonight

Training starts tonight at 18:45 in the usual place.

See you there!

Season Review 2011

This season started early back in stormy November 2010 in the Galway leg of the IV's. And we got off to a good start, winning both the Plate and the inaugural Galway Championship against NUIG Base Invaders. Should also be noted that we almost caused an upset against the All-Ireland Champions here, the Limerick Originals, holding them to a draw in the round robin stages.

Flash forward to April 2011, the Limerick IV, in hot sunshine we reached a second consecutive plate final, losing out to the UL 55's in the end.

Season proper started then, first up our first participation in the "Niall Mellon Trust Charity Blitz" in Castleknock College, kept up our run of final appearances here, winning the plate against the Renegades.

Next blitz was again in Castleknock at their invitational which we never miss. Due to our exploits in the previous blitz we were deemed strong enough for the competitive section. Held our own pretty well here going down by just 1 run in the semi finals to a Sluggers/BatPak mixed team.

In between the tournaments we also played our Munster League games, won 1 (or first in the munster league) and lost 1 against Cork and lost both against Limerick, so finished joint second with Cork in this.

This left the big tournament of the year, the IOST. We had only won a trophy once before at this way back in 2001. We put in good performances all weekend in this and battled our way to the final against a Renegades team. In a low scoring final we won out 3-0 in the end and claimed the Plate trophy.

Last but not least our annual MVP awards were presented at the end of the season. Winners for 2011:

Male MVP : Martinus Meela
Female MVP : Angelica Dooley

All in all a very successful season, lots of silverware, thanks to everyone who was part of it.