MUNGRET Community College have been crowned The World School U19 Basketball Champions in Valencia after a nail-biting 22-21 win over Jamue El Just of Spain.
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Claiming a world title is just the latest achievement for this Mungret Community College team, having won six All Ireland titles in the last number of years.
Principal Liam O’Mahony describes the school’s delight at winning such a prestigious competition.
“We’re just unbelievably proud of them, to win All-Ireland’s at C,B and A level as well as now winning at international level is just fantastic.
“They’re an amazing group of girls, they way in which they carry themselves in school and on the court but it’s not just on the court where they are incredible, they’re incredible leaders and role models within our school for the other students within the school,” he said.
“They’re a young team and a young group of girls but they are very experienced team, they never know when they’re beaten and when they pressure comes on them, they get better, they’re that type of team and we’re just immensely proud of them,” Liam added.
Aoife Donovan, who was joint head-coach with fellow Mungret Comminity College teacher Sinéad Pearse, explains how the school were invited to take part.
“Over the last number of years this team has won six All-Ireland titles and the World School Games, the company who run these competitions, monitor different countries from around the world over the course of a few years and they look out for teams that are consistently performing.
“We were lucky that we won the All-Ireland last year having no Leaving Cert students on the team, the team is still the same this year as it was last year. The World School Games sent us an invitation in January and we put it forward to the girls in the school and they were happy to fundraise and to get it going, that’s how it all came about,” she said.
Aoife states that the tournament ‘came upon’ the team all of a sudden after a busy start to the school year.
“To be honest we hadn’t put too much thought into it because we were so busy with the school year and with school basketball as we compete in both cup and league, from September to December is so busy.
“The girls had also done most of the fundraising for the trip before this school year had started so they were able to focus on league and cup matters here at home, the tournament in Spain kind of came upon us all of a sudden,” she said.
Aoife said that the team was going over in the first place to enjoy themselves and to treat the trip as a reward for their previous hard work in winning six All Ireland titles.
“We hadn’t done too much preparation, we watched a few games from a few of the other teams competing that we found online but we went really with the mindset of it being a reward for the girls for all the All Irelands they had won so far, a team bonding trip where they could play basketball outside of Ireland.
“We had no expectation of winning it whatsoever, we didn’t know what the competition would be like. We just went with an open mind that they might be able to learn some new skills and make a few friends and things like that but they managed to pull it out of the bag in the end,” Aoife said.
The Mungret CC joint head-coach says that there is something unique about school sport, that oftentimes can’t be replicated in any other sporting setting.
“School sport is very special because it’s only a six-year period. It can be a different dynamic to a club setting, it’s a really tight knit group of girls and we’re really lucky that we have four sets of sisters on the team.
“A lot of them are closely knit from their home situation but most of them have been together since first year so they are really close.
“Myself and Sinéad have known these girls since first year, we know them inside out and back to front so that can be different to what you could find in comparison to maybe a club team.
“We see these girls every day, we probably know them a bit more intimately than those who might know them in a club scene and that contributes massively to that special bond we all have,” she said.
Aoife says that defeating Jaume El Just, a Spanish team, in a tournament held in Valencia was a tough challenge but one that her side relished.
“That was hard in itself, they had the home crowd, the home referees, so there was a bit of additional pressure that it was Spain we were drawn against but the girls were fantastic and you couldn’t summarise how proud we are of them, they’re just amazing,” Aoife concluded.
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