University College Cork were crowned Inter-varsity indoor cricket champions at the weekend following a truly memorable competition at Jordanstown.
It was their first win in the eight year history of the tournament, as they comfortably chased down the NUI Galway total of 83 to win the final by three wickets.
Seven teams from Leinster were competing, with Dublin IT being the most successful, reaching the semi finals.
Tournament Organiser Dr Murray Power paid tribute to the teams, especially the hosts saying: “It was a really enjoyable and highly competitive tournament in a superb new facility at UUJ. I'm delighted to see 13 teams taking part and all four provinces represented in the semi-finals, with UCC emerging as champions for the first time.”
Pre-tournament favourites UCD, featuring Ireland Under 19 players Barry McCarthy and Tyrone Kane, were knocked out at the quarter-finals stage by eventual winners UCC. The University of Ulster were also strongly favoured but bowed out in the semi-finals.
Kane however had some personal satisfaction as he took a hat-trick in their 60 run win over finalists NUI Galway in the group stages,
The Dublin University Ladies team didn't fare too well, being skittled for just 5 runs as they went down to a mammoth 162 run loss to IT Sligo.
Many of the players taking part also play club cricket in Leinster, with Player of the Tournament, Junaid Amin of UCC starring for Cork County in their Division 3 winning side of 2013.
Junaid took 16 wickets in the tournament, with other bowlers who performed with distinction being Rahul Balachandran (DIT and Castleknock CC -12), Rachit Gaur (IT Carlow - 10), Waqar Ul Hassan (NUI Galway - 8), Mitul Galav (NUI Galway - 8) and Tyrone Kane (UCD, Merrion and Leinster Lightning - 8).
The leading run scorers were Rachit Gaur (IT Carlow - 165), Sarfraz Ramay (DIT - 130), Junaid Amin (UCC and Cork County - 121), Cian Scannell (UCC and Terenure - 112), Waqar Ul Hassan (NUI Galway - 109) and Lakshan Senanayake (NUI Galway - 106).
The 13 participating teams were: Galway/Mayo IT, National College of Ireland, IT Tallaght, University of Ulster, NUI Galway (finalists), UC Dublin, Dublin University Ladies, IT Sligo, UC Cork (winners), Dublin IT, Queens UB, Dundalk IT, IT Carlow.