Loftus Recycling 85
Titans 54
Team Loftus Recycling, Ballina, suffered a heavy defeat at the hands of Galway based side, Titans, in Renmore on Saturday night. Ballina player/coach, Liam McHale took no part in the game due to a back injury and his experience and know-how were severely missed by his young team. This game was won and lost in the opening quarter when the home team went on a scoring spree and clocked up a massive 32 points compared with just 11 by the visitors, the first coming from Ronan O’Malley with Peter Papic and Taofic Mustapha hitting four each. Numerous turnovers throughout this game cost the Mayo men dearly and Titans took full advantage. Ironically, most of Titans’ scores came from former Ballina star Paul Freeman, who had a game high of 26 points, and from Peldzius who hit a game total of 24.
Loftus Recycling fared much better in the second period. They started with a good three-pointer from veteran Anthony McHale and, in fact, they outscored their opponents by two points in this quarter with the Ballina scores coming mainly from Mustapha, with Colin O’Malley also landing two baskets and Blaise Devaney hitting another. However, despite their greatly improved performance, the Ballina side still trailed the home team by 19 points at half time with the score at 50-31. Daragh McGarrity came into the game more for Ballina in the third period but they found it very hard to penetrate a strong Titans’ defence and could only manage nine points compared with 20 by the Galway side with Peldzius again doing most of the damage. Titans used their strong bench to good effect and, by the three-quarter stage, they had extended their lead to 30 points and there was no way back for Loftus Recycling with the score board reading 70:30. In the final period, McGarrity hit seven points for Ballina and Anthony McHale hit another four, but further baskets by Peldzius, Freeman, and Garcia ensured that Titans retained their lead and ran out comfortable winners.
Tomorrow Loftus Recycling travel to Cork to take on Neptune in the Neptune Stadium with tip-off at 7pm. The following Saturday night, February 26, they host Portlaoise in their final home game of the season, in Ballina.
Loftus Recycling: Dara McGarrity (11 ), Blaise Devanney (2 ), Peter Papik (6 ), Taofic Mustapha (17 ), Anthony McHale (11 ), Ronan O’Malley (3 ), Colin O’Malley (5 ), Blaise Devanney (2 ).
Titans: C Joyce, C McMichael, P Peldzius (24 ), T Fabriciuss (4 ), D Mulveen, Paul Freeman (26 ), R Visockas (8 ), G Sedebskis, A Garcia (18 ), C Theke.
