Athlone's Our Lady’s Bower through to All Ireland junior volleyball final
Our Lady’s Bower in Athlone is delighted to have made yet another volleyball All Ireland final.
The school's junior volleyball team secured their place in the All-Ireland Junior B Volleyball final after soaring to victory in their two semi-final games against St Brigid’s College, Loughrea, and Patrician Presentation College, Fethard, last Tuesday, April 1.
The team, which is made up of first and second year students, have been working incredibly hard all season, showing unwavering dedication to the sport with training sessions twice per week.
On their route to the final, the girls took on and defeated teams from Mullingar Community School, Clarin College Athenry, Scoil Chríost Rí Portlaoise, Mercy College Roscommon and Grange Community College.
Across all of these games, we have seen some excellent defensive work from Carolina Gastanaga, who never lets any ball pass her by. Super setters Ellianna McManus and Lola Mora have shown great skill in ensuring the ball is set up perfectly for hitters Carmen Camancho, Isla Walshe, Olivia Collins, Emme Lynch, Lucia Wright and Leti Laguillo.
Since the sport was first introduced to Our Lady’s Bower in 2022, volleyball has gone from strength to strength with, over 60 students attending Junior (U14) Volleyball training after school and a similar number attending U16 training.
This is no doubt a result of the incredible successes of the Bower's senior volleyball students, who made the All-Ireland School’s Cup semi-final this year, were crowned All-Ireland Cadette Champions last year, and have won the Leinster Schools’ Beach Volleyball Championship for the last two years in a row.
The All Ireland final will take place this Monday, April 7, at 1.30pm in the University of Limerick Sports Arena, where the girls will take on Eureka College, Kells, in the bid to make Our Lady’s Bower All Ireland champions for the 3rd time in three years.
The final will be streamed live on the Volleyball Ireland YouTube channel from 1:30pm on Monday.
The school thanked coach Rebecca Mooney for her commitment and dedication to this team of talented young ladies, and wished them the best of luck in Monday's final.