In front of a full house for the opening game of the new Nivea Women's Superleague 11890 Killester won out vs a tough Ulster Rockets side.
Ulster led by Meghan Houlihan started brightly and were worthy of their early lead. Elaine Stone came off the bench for the home side and was red hot scoring 7 quick points to put the hosts in front. First quarter was tight with the home side leading by 2.
Second quarter started badly for Killester as the Rockets played some excellent basketball and took their chances to open up a 9 point lead 28 to 19 early in the quarter. 11890 responded by upping the level of defense and Hannah Fraser and Ciara Flaherty controlled the boards to get the home side back in it. Scores tied with 3 seconds to go and Michelle Clarke hit a big 3 to put the home side ahead 35 to 32 at the half.
In the 3rd Aisling Sullivan and Ali Maguire came out firing and opened up a 12 point gap for the home side. Ulster came back again behind Aisling Murray to cut the gap to 5 going into the 4th.
Killester looked a bit fresher in the 4th and got some easy scores to put the lead back to double digits. Ulster were not to be easily beaten though and kept coming back. Cutting the lead back to 7 with chances to close more. Killester found the right answers to win out in the end.
Good performance from both teams. Killester's coach said " the most important thing is the win, we played some nice basketball and we were sloppy at times. This is to be expected in the first game of the season. We will improve and we will be better.
