Five county singles titles were won last weekend by our juvenile players.   Eoghan Mc Ginnity won the Under 12 final while his sister Louise won the Under 12 Girls final with a 2-game victory over Tara Mc Meel. Louise’s power serves gave her a big advantage.  Viktorija beat fellow clubmate Selina over two games in the Girls Under 13 final.   Likewise Jakub Szkup overcame the challenge of clubmate Konrad Kowal in straight games to win the Under 13 title.  Konrad made too many errors in the first game and, while he played well in the second, Jakub was always in control.  The Under 14 final between Justas Dambinskas and Cailean Myles was expected to be a close affair and indeed this went to a deciding third game.  Justas, playing an intelligent passing game, ran out an easy winner however. We now look forward to the doubles events.  However the singles winners are not eligible to enter.

 Not to be outdone by the success of the juveniles, our two Golden Masters players have reached the singles county final for the second year running.  Martin Mc Entee was pushed all the way to a third game by Tydavnet’s Paul Cassidy before finally overcoming the spirited challenge.  Conor Mc Donnell also found the going tough early on against Corduff’s James Fealy.  This final should be close as both players are in top shape at the moment.  We lost the second leg of the Senior team league away to Bawn on Monday but it was great to see our players competing so well against this unbeaten team.

TYDAVNET HANDBALL

Last weekend saw Tydavnet Handball Club host the juvenile county finals. There were some fabulous matches, a testament to the standard of handball in Monaghan at present. Both the under 16 and under 17 grades were all Tydavnet affairs. In the under 16 final Conor Leonard and James Mc Cague had an epic battle with Conor eventually coming out on top in the tie breaker.

In the under 17 final Conor Mohan and James Corley faced up. James put up a great fight, his speed and agility served him well but Conor’s power and corner kills won him the day.

Our senior league team defeated Corduff on Monday night.

Cormac Sherry defeated Darren O Reilly and now meets Mickey Clerkin in the masters final.

MELLANS HANDBALL

Monaghan Sports Partnership. The St. Mellans Handball Club would like to thank Monaghan Sports Partnership for the recent grant received from them, this money will go towards the development of the sport not only at the alleys in St.Mellans but also to the 4 local national schools in the parish and surrounding area, hopefully we will be reaping the rewards in time to come when we might have more county, provincial, national and even another “world champion”, thank you very much.

Mono League. There will be a break from the Mono League for the festive period but there are a lot of outstanding games so we hope people will us the few weeks off to play any un-finished games, all outstanding games must be played before the new round of games begin in the new year, thank you.

County Juvenile Championships. We had a bad haul this year at the juvenile championships with only one winner and another to come as an all club game in the U17 girls between Nicole Mc Carron and Shauna Mc Aree has to be played yet, the sole winner to date was Ryan Mohan in the U15’s where he defeated Cillian Sherry from Tydavnet, in the U12 girls final Tara Mc Meel lost to Louise Mc Ginnity from The Harps, and in the U15 girls Niamh Fullen lost to Lucy Mc Donald from Emyvale, hard luck to all the participants but lets hope we can re-group as a club and come back even strong next year, because it does be disappointing for the coaches who put in so much time,effort and energy to all the endeavors and for the club not to have more success.

Senior Championships. Hard luck to Padraig Mc Kenna who lost his semi-final in the senior championship to eventual winner Darren Doherty from Emyvale, even after losing the first game Paudie re-grouped and pulled the second game out of the fire but he couldn’t live with Darren and lost the tie-breaker, Darren secured his first title against the old southern war-horse that is Terry Keirnan in another epic 3 game battle on Sunday evening past, well done Darren and congratulations on winning the title from all at St.Mellans.

College Handball. We had 3 players from the club who were in action for St.Macartans College during last week, Aaron & Ryan Mohan lost the Ulster Semi-final in the Junior grade against Tyrone opposition, and by all accounts this was a game that could have been won, and in the Intermediate Semi-final Gary Treanor(T) partnered by Conor Mohan from Tydavnet lost to Cavan opposition, hard luck to all players.

Juvenile Club Coaching. The festive season kicks in now and there will be a well earned break for players and coaches, but we hope to see all back playing in 2014 after the big “Red Boy” is gone back up North. All sessions will be back in action beginning Monday the 6th of January unless your coaches have you back earlier.

Happy Christmas. The club would like to wish one and all a truly happy and peaceful Christmas and lets hope a prosperous, peaceful and rebuilding new year, see you all in 2014, go easy on the sweets.