Wildcats weather Mhuire storm

Wildcats finally rid themselves of the cup nerves that have dogged them over the years and they are now almost certainly assured of the double in Irish women's basketball after this success.

Those nerves, which were so apparent in Saturday's awkward semi-final victory in over-time against Meteors, did re-visit the Wildcats bench during a superb Naomh Mhuire comeback in the second half but the Waterford women then confronted the demons of past failures and killed them with a devastating conclusion.

Wildcats played some of the finest basketball ever seen in a women's final during a first half in which they completely dominated in every facet of the game.

Mhuire did not know where to look to plug the gaps in their defence as Jillian Hayes had a free run to the basket in the first five minutes, during which she scored a remarkable 10 points, while Michelle Maguire's outside shooting and opportunistic driving yielded score after score.

Maguire and Hayes, team-mates in the Irish squad for over five years, are used to teaming up and inflicting harm on opponents but the degree of their first half dominance was astonishing even by their own high standards. Of the 44 points that Wildcats put on the board in the opening period, 33 of them came from the free-shooting duo and Mhuire were a humbled side when the half time buzzer sounded.

In truth, Mhuire had largely contributed to their own predicament as they had appeared to stand off their opponents and watch what was happening to them rather than graft hard and search for solutions.

One remedy for their troubles was out-and-out aggression, an element that characterises every Wildcats performance and in the early part of the second half, Mhuire started to make their presence felt. The smallest player on court, the Mhuire point guard Donna Roche, hit form, and Anne Marie Kyne, a player of high ability but with a tendency to drift out of games, also improved and began to curtail the influence that Hayes had on the game and even kept her scoreless for all of 15 minutes.

Catriona O'Keeffe came off the bench to figure prominently in both offence and defence and had a second half total of six points combined with 10 from Kyne and seven from Roche.

Mhuire generated enough impetus to nullify the influence of Hayes and Maguire to such a degree that Wildcats had to look elsewhere for scores. With four minutes to go, Wildcats were almost at crisis point when Edel O'Gorman scored from close range to narrow Mhuire's deficit to just four points, 56-52.

Finishing off the comeback with victory almost in sight was always going to be harder than whittling away at a big lead with little to lose - and so it proved.

As Mhuire entered the phase of the game where the prospect of winning was a reality, the odds began to favour their fitter, stronger opponents who had gone unbeaten all season.

Maguire and Hayes broke free again from their markers to combine to score 12 points in less than two minutes which took Wildcats into a 14-point lead with 90 seconds remaining, at which point they consolidated their position sufficiently so that they could enjoy rather than endure the final minute.

Maguire and Hayes each scored 24 points, and really should have shared the MVP award, but Maguire's brilliant long-range shooting shaded it.

She shot five three-pointers in a brilliant display of long-range shooting into the notoriously unforgiving Arena baskets.