On a weekend of surprises, the almost two-year long unbeaten record of women's superleague leaders Wildcats came to an end, while the reigning men's champions Star of the Sea suffered their first defeat in over two months.
For Wildcats, the end of an incredible run of 32 consecutive victories at national level is unlikely to prevent them from finishing the year as champions but for Star, the loss of outright leadership of the ESB Superleague could prove costly.
Tolka Rovers were the team to finally end the brilliant run of Wildcats, who typically, did not let their record go easily as the narrow margin of 72-74 reflects.
A full court press by Tolka forced the Waterford women into many mistakes and at half-time the Dubliners led 41-38 after they had bravely come back from eight points down in the second quarter. Wildcats, who were missing Mary Fitzpatrick, were lacking under the boards which forced them to rely on outside shooting. That helped to keep them in the game right to the final buzzer only for Tolka to seal victory in the last minute. With half a minute remaining, Tolka led 71-70 and the last score, with 26 seconds left, came from a Roisin Dixon free-throw. A subsequent three-point attempt by Wildcats's Michelle Aspell bounced clear of the rim to end their last remaining hopes of rescuing a proud record.
In the men's superleague, the 8573 defeat of Star of the Sea at the hands of St Vincent's in Glasnevin demonstrated just how unpredictable the league has been this season.
The Dubliners had lost mysteriously earlier in the campaign to the bottom club Tolka Rovers but against Star yesterday, they were inspired.
The Belfast side clearly missed the injured Gareth McGuire but it was hard to detract from the quality of St Vincent's performance in which Karl Donnelly, with a contribution of 23 points against his old club, played a major part. After a close first quarter, the sides were level at 21-apiece, but by the break, St Vincent's had taken a 40-35 lead. Heading into the final quarter they were ahead by twelve.
Although Star subsequently pulled the deficit back to five points, the Glasnevin side were not to be denied. The impact of that result on the title race is significant. Effectively, the contest seems to be down to just Star of the Sea and Waterford who impressively maintained their challenge with an 85-65 home win on Saturday night over Dungannon.
Star and Waterford, each with only three defeats in 15 games, are now joint leaders while Blue Demons kept their remote hopes of title success intact with an 87-85 win at UCD Marian.
The other significant result over the weekend was Killester's 89-86 defeat by Delta who held on for victory in Clontarf in spite of having player-coach Anthony Jenkins fouled out with over seven minutes remaining. Not even 34 points from Damon Shoultz could save the north Dublin side from their fifth defeat of the campaign.
Another team which has been losing touch with the title race over the past few weeks is Neptune who suffered their third defeat in a row by losing 87-82 at home to Sligo.
