5 gold medals & 2 silver medals in world championships:
-U17 singles Caislin Tracey
U13 singles Emma Conway
U15B singles Maryjo Morris
U13 doubles Aimee Fox & Emma Conway
U17 doubles Caislin Tracey & (Holly Byrne Kilkenny)
U15B doubles Maryjo Morris & (Kayleigh McCoole Breacach)
Greencastle players will go down in the history books as one of the leading clubs on the medals table on the world handball stage for the 2024 handball championships. Huge credit to all children and parents involved. We had 10 juvenile players and their families who made the trip to Leinster venues over the past week playing games daily in a packed fixtures schedule commuting between different alleys throughout the week.
13&U girls singles & doubles Emma Conway and Aimee Fox competed in both grades where Emma dominated the singles grade to claim a fantastic victory in the final against Molly Joyce from Ballina on a score of 15-10 & 15-9.
Aimee lost out in the knockout stages of the singles but made up for the disappointment to partner Emma in the doubles to win gold against dublin sisters Ciara & Laura O’Reily on a score of 15-0 & 15-12 to make it a clean sweep for Greencastle in the singles and doubles girls grade.
17&U Caislin Tracey number 1 seed and team Ireland representative did not disappoint and reached the final in impressive fashion to set up a final with the highly talented Caramel Kelleher from Cork in what turned out to be a hard fought battle losing the first game on a score of 13-15, only to recover and win the second 15-2 to set up a nailbiting tiebreaker and thankfully Caislin come out on top on a score of 11-7 to claim her second worlds gold medal this year.
Caislin also reached the final of the 17&U girls doubles along with her doubles partner Holly Byrne from Kilkenny against Caramel Kelleher (Cork) & Katie Jordan (Kilkenny). The girls come home with the silver medal on scores 4-15, 15-14 & tiebreaker 11-2. Well done girls.
U15B singles Maryjo Morris got her due rewards for the amount of effort this young lady puts in for training to claim the u15B gold medal against her opponent Aoife Walsh from Galway on a score of 15-4, 11-15 & 11-5.
Maryjo also with her doubles partner Kayleigh McCoole (Breacach) added a sliver medal to her collection for their efforts losing out to a Wexford pair on a score of 13-15 & 7-15.
Also a special mention to our other 6 players who should be proud of their performances and deserve recognition for their efforts.
15&U boys Tarlach Tracey singles & doubles reached the plate final in the doubles competition with his partner Caithair Kelly (Breacach) only to lose out in the final against 2 talented Loughmacrory lads Micheal McCrystal & Eoin Kelly.
U13B singles Anthony Morris deserves great credit to reach the last 4 in a grade which had over 70 entries only to lose out to Mickey Googins of Wexford in the semi finals.
U13B girls singles and doubles Emma Fox and Anna Mae McElduff performed well and gained great experience from this competition and no doubt these girls will stick at it and be competing for medals in competitions in the near future.
Also our 2 youngest entries for the competition and 2 stars for the future Aodhan Fox & Ciaran Og Tracey teamed up for the 11&U fun event in Croke Park to win all the games their group.
Aodhan also stepped up to play 13&UB doubles with Daithi Kelly (Breacach) where they had a great victory in one of the most exciting games of the week against a Dublin team only to lose out in the next round against a stronger Monaghan pairing.
Well done to our all our players who continue to keep Greencastle firmly established as one of the leading juvenile handball strongholds in the country with the continued success from the All Ireland 40×20 & 60×30 1 wall nationals & championships and feile titles and that hopefully the success of these major titles claimed will continue to inspire more of our youth to follow in the footsteps for their achievements for years to come.
Comhghairdeas agus Maith sibh!
