Hockey Leinster Schoolgirls' Senior Cup semi-finalsSt Andrews and Loreto Beaufort will meet in the Leinster Senior Cup final next month after they came through their semi-finals at Grange Road yesterday, St Andrews beating Muckross Park 5-3 and Beaufort coming back from a goal down to beat Mount Sackville 2-1.
St Andrews, who won the cup in 2003 and 2004, were on top in their semi-final after just 45 seconds, when Caitriona McGilp broke through the Muckross defence and set up Gillian Lane to score. Hannah Leggett cracked home a short corner after 18 minutes to put Andrews 2-0 up, a two-goal advantage she restored early in the second half from another corner after Anna Bowe had pulled a goal back for Muckross a minute after Leggett's first score.
Anna O'Flanaghan narrowed the lead again when she converted Muckross's first corner of the game midway through the second half but McGilp and the marvellously gifted 13-year-old Chloe Watkins sealed the win for Andrews with two more goals, before Bowe added a late consolation score at the death.
Beaufort, for whom Zara Delany was quite outstanding, dominated their semi-final against Mount Sackville, winning nine short corners to one, but fell behind after 20 minutes when Aoibhinn Garrihy turned home Susie O'Connell's free from the edge of the circle. Beaufort, though, finally converted that dominance into goals in a three-minute spell in the second half when Roisin O'Keeffe scored twice.
ST ANDREWS: C Rowe, H Leggett, L Mullane, C Stephens, S O'Conaill, G Moore, C McGilp, G Lane, R Burke, E Carson, Courtney Watkins. Subs: Chloe Watkins, L Willis, I O'Keeffe, L O'Duffy, E Clarke.
MUCKROSS PARK: R Creedon, A Heuston, S McErlean, L Costello, K McKenna, L Cassidy, O O'Kane, K Geraghty, A O'Flanaghan, E Tunney, L Byrne. Subs: E O'Donnell, E Queenan, A Bowe, S O'Reilly, A Lambert.
Umpires: C Metchette and J Girdham.
LORETO BEAUFORT: C Collins, A Cronin, G Brennan, J Dawson, V Redmond, L Ryan, O O'Shea, C MacNamara, M O'Flanagan, R O'Keeffe, A Campion. Subs: Z Delany, R Maunsell, S Barnwell, H Matthews, A Egan.
MOUNT SACKVILLE: L Redmond, A Feighery, S O'Connell, A Davy, N Fox, R O'Connell, E Lyons, S K Caughey, A O'Connor, A Garrihy, J Steen. Subs: O Fox, O McInerney, C Farmer, K Burns, D Sheill.
Umpires: F Marshall and I Ovington.
