Moycullen honoured as Irish basketball Club of the Year

GALWAY was to the forefront of the National Basketball awards last weekend in Dublin as Moycullen BC was honoured with the Irish Club of the Year award while NUIG Mystics star Ailish O’Reilly was awarded National League Young Player of the Year.

“It’s a great day for Galway basketball and a recognition from people who know the game how much work is being done here,” said John Cunningham who collected the Club of the Year award on behalf of Moycullen.

“Moycullen has received huge levels of support from a lot of Galway basketball people throughout our first four years in SuperLeague and in general for our role in promoting the game. While we might have been the most visible club in recent years, the award is really a touch of the hat to all the clubs that are driving the game to new levels in Galway.”

The award was decided exclusively by votes from members of the national media who regularly feature basketball in their coverage, pointing to the excellent profile Moycullen has on a national stage.

This season in particular, Moycullen enjoyed success on the big stage with two of the club’s most memorable wins, the overtime SuperLeague thriller against  DCU Saints and the U18 National Cup quarter final triumph away to KUBS of Dublin, being broadcast on television on Setanta.

Those highlights along with their generally eye-catching SuperLeague season, large presence on Irish squads of all ages and numerous nationally competitive underage teams helped persuade the media to name them club of the year.

Saturday marked the third occasion that Moycullen have won Club of the Year honours, the previous two coming in 1997 and 2000 as the club continued to develop one of the best underage programmes in the country into a serious senior contender also.

They are not the only Galway club to be honoured in the past by the national governing body with Titans winning the award in 2006 as it exploded onto the scene while Calasanctius in Oranmore and St Joseph’s ‘The Bish’ in Galway city have both previously been named basketball school of the year.

While unable to attend the award ceremony itself on Saturday, Ailish O’Reilly of NUIG Mystics was named the National League Female Young Player of the Year. Her teammate Aileen Crowley accepted the award on her behalf.

Speaking about the award, O’Reilly credited her team-mates with her success during the season. “It’s amazing to be given the award but really the whole Mystics team deserved it. We had an amazing bunch and were unlucky not to have finished with silverware, so it’s nice for us to be represented at the end of season awards.”

O’Reilly enjoyed an outstanding season with Mystics, who reached the Women’s Division One play-offs for the first time. She led the team in scoring with 21 points per game and was the engine of the team throughout the season as the 19-year-old proved a true court leader despite her young age.