Seattle Gaels: Nationals Roundup
By ROB MULLIN
SEATTLE - It's been a pretty ambitious year for the Gaels this year, but all the hard efforts and fundraising paid off as the Gaels sent four - yes, four teams to the North American County Board Finals in Chicago over the Labour day long weekend.
Teams were fielded in Ladies B Gaelic football, hurling teams in both B and C division, and for the first time since 2004, the Gaels fielded a men's Gaelic football team in Junior C Division.
The ladies, the men's C football and C hurling teams played their first games on Friday. At the end of the day it was only the ladies that continued on during the competition.
The Seattle C hurlers met the extremely talented Indianapolis team with a couple fantastic Irish players. Seattle were defeated, but gave a valiant effort playing hard for every point up until the last whistle. Those efforts were obviously felt by Indianapolis as they were eliminated by St. Louis and seemed to be out-of-gas in the next round on Saturday.
The men's football team, despite being on a hiatus for the last couple of years still played Pittsburgh Celtic hard and lost only by a couple of points. It bodes well for a resurgence of Men's Gaelic and that Seattle still has the talent to come back and be a contender for Boston in 2008.
Saturday saw the ladies go on to play probably the toughest game of the weekend against Philadelphia, which was an extremely physical match. Philadelphia came at them with everything they had, but it wasn't enough, as the Seattle Ladies went on to defeat them 4-5 to 1-11. There was even a comment from a nearby match official that Seattle played one of the cleanest games of football he had ever seen.
The men's B hurling took to pitch against Milwaukee in the hot afternoon sun, but it was unfortunately a case of déja vu from the previous day. Despite fighting hard, Seattle were handed a bitter defeat by the Wisconsin club.
The team retreated to the Gaelic Park beer garden to lick their wounds and strategize on what to do next year. There may have been some other spirited activities such as the garbage-can limbo, but after such a hard year of training it was time to let off some steam.
With the men's teams eliminated, several of the fellas decided to forgo the All Ireland Hurling to watch the Ladies B Football final against Atlanta. Seattle came at them like a bullet out of gun, scoring in the first 30 seconds.
Atlanta was unable to answer back, until 20 minutes into the game when they scored their first point. When the dust settled, it was the Seattle ladies standing victorious with the cup and the scoreboard showing 3-14 to 0-6 for Atlanta. It was Seattle's Kate Starbird who was picked as player of the week
The champagne and beer flowed freely as the Gaels went out on the town to celebrate. A celebration of a 10-year long quest for the ladies to win their Junior B football title. It was also time celebrate another great year of hard work and fun for all the teams and to discuss stories of the battles won and lost the previous days and to lay plans for the year to come.
|
