Basketball National Cup finals/ Tralee tigers 90 St Vincent's 81: Texas-El Paso College played a significant role in bringing a first men's National Cup title to Kerry yesterday, as the inspirational figures of Tralee player-coach Chris Craig and his pal Roy Smallwood arrived from this school of excellence last autumn.
St Vincent's have been coming strong all year, and for the middle two quarters yesterday looked set to make the biggest step of all. That was until early in the fourth when their concentration lagged and with it went the title.
Leading 67-66, everything was motoring along nicely with the Tigers seemingly over-dependant on scoring contributions from Smallwood and Luke O'Hea.
But a salvo of three-pointers from Craig and Kieran Donaghy followed, before a wonderful passing movement was finished off by John Teahan.
St Vincent's coach Joey Boylan, called a timeout to try to stop the haemorrhaging, but with six minutes 38 seconds left on the clock, the damage was done. 76-67 and game over.
There were several enthralling duels, the main being the battle of the Americans: Smallwood versus Paul Tonkovich, with the former unanimously picking up the MVP prize. Tonkovich did rally in the second-half, before fouling out with 1.33 remaining.
The pick of the Irish was St Vincent's Peter Madsen, who finished with 22 points and eight rebounds, belying his 6ft 1in stature. But his excellent shooting display was cancelled out by the Kerry football contingent of big Michael Quirke and Donaghy.
Then there were the other Americans. In this regard, St Vincent's ultimately lost out. It was remarkable to learn Mike Trimmer was on court for 26 minutes, such was his anonymity.
For the Tigers, Craig was inspirational late on and Roscoe Patterson made some timely interventions - in particular a deft tee-up for Smallwood's first slam dunk early in the second quarter.
At that stage they trailed by two (29-27), but their full arsenal was still in reserve. Soon after Craig and Quirke, who matched Tonkovich in the physical stakes, came in for Teahan and Patterson as the Tigers began to take scores inside the D. They led 49-42 at half-time.
A refereeing decision riled Tonkovich into a third-quarter scoring spree, but a Quirke basket on the buzzer kept the lead and psychological edge with Tralee. The fourth began with another Smallwood dunk, setting it up for the Craig-inspired blitz.
The anti-climatic finish masked what had been a thrilling cup final. The Tigers sauntered through the closing stages as Craig tried to get the second string on court.
Tra;ee now focus on the double, as they return to the National Arena next Sunday to play Shamrock Rovers Hoops.
SCORERS - Tralee Tigers: R Smallwood 31, C Craig 22, L O'Hea 16. St Vincent's: P Madsen 22, P Tonkovich 18, S McGuirk 16.
