The Scoil Chríost Rí U-18 basketball team from Portlaoise will bid for the honour of representing Ireland at the World Schoolgirls Championships in Crete next April when they take on Pres Castleisland in a playoff game in UL tomorrow Tuesday, October 9, at 11am.
The school qualify for the playoff by virtue of their record at U-16 A level over the past two seasons. They won the All Ireland Cup and championship double last year and the Cup the previous season.
Represented Ireland at world championships twice before
Their loss to Castleisland in the championship final that same season was their only loss in two years.
Indeed, SCR lost the two All-Ireland finals three years ago to Clontarf who were the last school to represent Ireland at the bi-annual World event. SCR have only lost three games in three years at the U16 ‘A’ level.
If the Portlaoise school win the play-off it will be the third time that they have represented Ireland at the World Championships. They previously played in Jerusalem in 1999 and Turkey in 2001.
SCR have a strong, skilful and experienced team at this level and had an excellent win in the 1st Round of the Senior A Cup against Kiltimagh last week with the majority of this team playing.
However, they will be all too aware of the challenge Pres Castleisland will bring to this game. A win would be a further boost to the game which is thriving in Portlaoise at the moment.
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