Atlanta travelled to Charleston, SC on April 25th to participate in the third annual Holy City Cup alongside our hosts, Raleigh, Greenville and Hampton Roads. The camogie coaches and squad also participated in a camogie clinic and friendly game for camogie players from the rest of the southeastern clubs. It was fantastic to see the newly formed Cumann na mBan club from Virginia sedt fifteen girls to participate which bodes well for the future of camogie in the South.
In the opening game of the hurling tournament Atlanta took on a fit and determined Charleston outfit. Seamus Byrnes scored an early goal before Charleston’s hustle and pace began to dominate around the middle of the park. Some well taken scores by Charleston resulting in them leading at half time. Atlanta started the second half with great purpose. Matt Shand, whose fitness and hustle shown throughout this tournament as evidenced in the photograph below, began to shut down the Charleston midfield to allow Atlanta to get on top. Lance Miller scored a goal after finishing a great run to the back post and used a neat ground stroke to set up Seamus Byrnes to score another goal shortly thereafter. A long clearance from Peter Molloy took a lucky bounce to end up in the back of the net to further extend our lead. John Hunted added a spectacular point on the run from 40 yards out. Just as complacency began to take hold however, the Charleston team scored a couple of goals to launch a spirited comeback. A combined Matt Gault and Sarah Spiller effort in a goal line scramble resulted in a goal at the end which closed out the game. Atlanta won the game with a final score of 5-4 to 3-5.
The next group game against Raleigh was to decide which club would advance to the final to take on the Hampton Roads club. Once again Atlanta got off to a quick start via a Seamus Byrnes goal as the midfield of Matt Shand and Paul Jones went through an amount of work. Dan Kuemmerle played outstanding defense in this game to counter an excellent attacking unit from Raleigh. Jolene Glenn in goals also made some many outstanding saves throughout this game. In spite of huge commitment shown by Atlanta, the goal scoring prowess shown by Raleigh proved to the difference between the sides. Seamus Byrnes, in a fantastic individual performance, finished with 4-1 which consisted of all of Atlanta’s scores in this game against 7-3 scored by Raleigh.
Well done to Matt Gault, Billy Kane and Matt Shand who made their competitive debuts for Atlanta in this tournament. Congrats to winners Hampton Roads who won their first tournament thanks to their tremendous work developing hurling in Virginia in recent years.
Hurling Squad: Jolene Glenn, Brian Laughlin, Peter Molloy, Dan Kuemmerle, Paul Jones, Matt Shand, John Hunt, Seamus Byrnes, Matt Gault, Lance Miller, Jen Beato, Billy Kane, Sarah Spiller, Zoe Beato & David O’Donoghue