International

Jul 13 2022

Ireland defeated by Spain at FIBA U20 Women's European Championship

Ireland have been knocked out of the main draw at the FIBA U20 Women’s European Championship, despite a brave showing during their 87-30 defeat to second-ranked Spain.

They now face Finland this evening at 18:45, as the battle to remain in Division ‘A’ begins for Karl Kilbride’s team. Victory over their Nordic rivals and their place is secure. Defeat and Ireland must play a further two classification games on Thursday to decide their fate.

You'll be able to watch the game against Finland here.

The first quarter of this Round of 16 game proved to be Ireland’s most combative. The Irish took their only lead of the game through an early Abigail Rafferty free-throw, before Spain found their feet and went on a 15-2 run. That run came to an end via a trio of Hazel Finn free-throws and Ireland went on to record the closing six-points of the quarter, leaving the score 18-12.

Knowing they were in a game, Spain stepped up the quality of their play significantly for the remainder of the contest, outscoring Ireland 57-13 during the second and third quarters. They’d finish the game shooting 46% from inside the paint and 30% from outside the arc. Ireland’s roster got all got valuable minutes against very high calibre opponents that will stand them in good stead as they look to remain at the top table for the next FIBA U20 Women’s European Championship.

Hazel Finn led the way for Ireland, making all five of her free throws, supported by 8-points from Ella O’Donnell and a 66% shooting performance by Kara McCleane. Ireland’s next opponents Finland lost out by 10-points (84-74) against home favourites Hungary.

Reacting to the loss, Ireland head coach Karl Kilbride said:

Especially in the first quarter I thought our fight and execution were excellent. It’s very difficult at this level, Spain are very good at basketball. They are very good at every part of the game. Where we probably fell down is in the number of turnovers we had. They scored 46-points of those turnovers.

If we win today we stay up. Our goal coming here was to stay up. Finland are obviously excellent. We saw them run Hungary really close tonight. They’re long, they shoot the ball incredibly well and they’re well drilled but if our fight and our execution come together at the same time, there is no team out there that we’d wouldn’t fancy our chances against.