Gio…Issa, Girls u17 Milan International Basketball Tournament

April 29-3rd May

The Girls spent the day chilling out in the fine Italian sunshine having left the Irish weather behind at 7am that morning. Everyone was in good form and looking forward to a great five days in Milan and what followed did not disappoint. We were picked up at the Airport by our Hosts and brought to their lovely facility in the town of RHO to meet some of the other teams who had also arrived early in the day. New Friendships were struck especially with the Spanish team AB Premia from Barcelona. We also met the girls from Latvia who had won the previous couple of tournaments and it was easy to see why, just looking at their height. Throughout the five days the Italians could not have done anymore for us feeding, transporting us to and from games, bringing us to Milan. We home stayed with the parents of the Gioissa girls and they were fabulous, the poor Coaches had to Stay in the new Rho, Milan Holiday Inn as guests of Gioissa. When the Basketball started, the standard was very high with teams providing many players who are about to represent their countries in the coming European Championships. The Hall was full of supporters for all the games as the local community got fully behind the teams, they had an army of volunteers in place to drive, cook, referee, officiate on the table, administrators and translators. The tournament went off from start to finish like clockwork and that was playing full 10 min. quarters, we couldn’t pay Gioissa enough credit and thanks for what was the best tournament we ever played in.

Killester 67 - 34 Azzuura Vco

This was the first time the girls played against an Italian team and the excitement was building from the moment the warm up started a full hour before the tip off. Killester started with a strong five and got their nose ahead early, the first quarter was close but in the second we started to pull away from Azzuura. Coach Philly Clarke ran a rotation giving all the players equal court time as Killester continued to build on their lead, running out easy winners

Scorers Mimi Clarke 18 Mimi Troy 12 Amy Russell 6

Killester 76 - 32 Gio…Issa

Coach Martin Grennell arrived having spent a very tiring week playing golf in Spain and continued playing the rotation of players as Killester got a strangle hold on the game very early and beat a very game and sporting Gio…issa team who tried hard as they could to make a close game of it but Killester were just to strong.

Mimi Troy 21 Mimi Clarke 15 Amy Russell 8 Niamh O’Meara 6

Ridzene Riga 104 – 43 Killester

The first quarter was a close run event but Riga with 7 Latvian under 18 Internationals in their team, shot the ball really well as the started to rack up the scores. The final score line did not reflect the competitive performance by Killester however a lesson was given to us by a very strong and powerful Riga team and it was easy to see why they were champions.

Mimi Clarke 28 Mimi Troy 4

Semi Finals

ŽKD Jezica Ljubljana 72 - 43 Killester

For three quarters of this game it was a great battle but with tiredness setting in Killester started to fade and ZKD didn’t need any more encouragement and just blew us away in the final quarter with their lovely brand of fast passing, dribbling and shooting. They had three Players who are playing in the Euros in Macedonia and it was nice when the coach of ZKD organised a little get together after the game with Michelle Clarke and Amy Russell who will be representing Ireland at the tournament, the five girls had a good chat and promised to meet up again in Skopje, Macedonia. This was just another example of the spirit amongst the teams in this tournament

Mimi Clarke 22 Mimi Troy 9 Sally O’Moore 6

Play off 3rd 4th place

San Juan Bosco Salamanca 57 - 53 Killester

Killester led all the way but just couldn’t shake of a very good Salamanca team, we were always three or four points ahead with all twelve players getting game time, it was end to end stuff and when Mimi Clarke was fouled off with three minutes to go Salamanca grabbed the upper hand to steal victory at the death. It was a great game played in a very competitive and sporting spirit and after playing five games the girls were glad it was all over, it was time to party.

MVP of Tournament: Nina Gabrovsek (ŽKD Jezica Ljubljana)

Top score of Tournament: Mimi Clarke (Killester Dublin) 100 Points in 5 games