Ireland win historic first medal

This past weekend, Volleyball Ireland won an historic first ever men’s underage medal in the Small Countries Association (SCA) U20 Men’s Championships, which counted as a qualifier for this year’s European Championship in this same category. Alessandra Trio’s youngsters came from behind to defeat Northern Ireland 3-1 (18-25, 25-17, 28-26, 25-23), and finish third in the competition, which was held at the Sport Ireland Campus Dublin. That victory meant successive wins for Team Ireland after overcoming Gibraltar on Saturday evening.

Carrick Crows man Emilio-Darren Tumamao hit the winning spike to send the team and raucous crowd into raptures. The win was setup from SETU Carlow’s Patrick Crawley who led Ireland’s attack scoring 18 points. He was well supported by Lachlan Donnelly and setter Roi Valdez.

Earlier in the day Scotland took gold, with a nail-biting 3-2 victory (25-20, 25-19, 21-25, 21-25, 15-10) over a talented San Marino. Opposite hitter Ewan Ramsay was the main man, and the standout player in the tournament. With this result and as winners of the SCA event, Scotland have qualified for the #EuroVolleyU20M Final Round scheduled for later this summer in Serbia and Greece. 

Final standing 

1.    Scotland 
2.    San Marino 
3.    Ireland 
4.    Northern Ireland 
5.    Gibraltar