YMCA and Mullingar guaranteed big days out on Saturday afternoon as they reached their respective Irish Hockey Challenge finals with wins over Clonmel and Saintfield, respectively.
It will be YM ladies' first ever national cup final after just three years in existence and they will hope to add the major silverware to back-to-back league titles. They disposed of Clonmel 4-0 to reach the final where they will meet Fermoy who edged a thriller over Naas, 4-3 after extra-time.
Division four's Mullingar will be looking for a similar piece of history with a first national title. They won in Ulster for the second round running, beating Saintfield 3-2 with influential midfielder Tom Bowers scoring one and Colin Watters bagging a brace.
Elsewhere, Pembroke II maintained their hopes of retaining the Irish Junior Cup, putting their league form behind them to beat Corinthian II 2-0 - veteran Duncan McKeen and Scott Lowrie getting the goals.
They now face a Sandymount derby in the semi-finals against YMCA II. Glenanne, should they get by an impressive Cork C of I B team next week, will have to travel to Cookstown for a last-four encounter.
Genesis, meanwhile, were eliminated from the Irish Hockey Trophy at the semi-final stage after an odyssey-style season had seen them travel all over the country. Their hopes were dashed by Catholic Institute who ran out 3-0 winners.
Results
ESB Irish Hockey Trophy - semi-final
Ulster Elks 2 (Louise Wright, Caroline Smith) Cookstown 0; Catholic Institute 3 (Rosie Pratt, Kym Daly, Aoife Rosin Burke) Genesis 0
Men's Irish Hockey Trophy - semi-final
North Down 4 Catholic Inst 0; NICS 4 (Aaron Gill 2, J Anderson, R Anderson) Antrim 5 (J McMeekin 2, S Mitchell, R Maybin, I Brownlees)
ESB Irish Hockey Challenge - semi-final
Fermoy 4 (MT Murphy, N Keniry 2, T Fitzpatrick) Naas 3 (L Sharpe, J Blanchfield, B Carey) after extra-time; YMCA 4 Clonmel 1
Men's Irish Hockey Challenge - semi-final
Down 1 (Richard Owens) Campbellians 2 (Joel Easlea, Adam Campbell) after extra-time; Saintfield 2 (Davy Johnson, Gavin Kirkpatrick) Mullingar 3 (Mullingar: Colin Watters 2, Tom Bowers)
Men's Irish Junior Cup - Quarter Finals
Pembroke II 2 (Duncan McKeen, Scott Lowrie) Corinthian II 0
Semi-Final draw (March 28): Pembroke Wanderers II v YMCA II; Cookstown II v Glenanne II/Cork C of I II
5 comments:
Comment left on Friday:
Corinthians 2's to win the lot. We're gonna win the league and IJC. Pembroke aren't the team they were.
Good one!
we'll win the league anyway.
Naas Ladies were robbed by Fermoy yesterday. They played so much better than the Fermoy Girls and but for a bit of misfortune would have won easily.
well done to all the girls from Catholic Institute. see you all at the final.
Good to see Mullingar competing on a national stage, considering they crap pitch they have and limited numbers they have to work with. Just shows that the IHT and IHC cup's are a great idea for both men and women with teams traveling to play teams they would never normally get tlo play.
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