GALWAY

The first Streetball Nationwide event outsie Dublin kicked off in NUIG Galway last Saturday. There were five teams present on the day streetballireland.com, Young Guns, Moycullen Youth, a local Galway team and Dublin Dragunz. The streetballireland.com team for the day was Phil Taylor, Conor Ahenert, Phil Reynolds, Simon Flynn, Emer Foley and Keith Ryan. The day started off with the matchup between the youn guns and the Moycullen juniors. The young guns were heavy favorites with a couple of Limerick and Moycullen players led by Neill campell. Moycullen were a decent tesam but very young ( 14 - 16 approx). Despite the age and size deficit Moycullen started well and were up at halftime. The young guns pulled away in the second half to run out winners. Streetballireland.com easily ran out winners in their first game beating the Galway team by approx. 50 points. The young guns beat the Dragunz and Moycullen beat the local team to set up a final of streetballireland.com vs. The Young Guns. The final started out tit for tat but then the young guns caught fire. Im not talking about one or two players but the whole team. They first hit some open threes, then contested threes and then any three pointer that went up was going in. It was a shooting display any NBA team woul be proud of.Streetballireland.com chipped away at the lead but on the back of their shooting the young guns ran out winners by 15 points a buzzer beater by one of the young guns swished from almost the half way line said it all. Congratulations to the Galway Winners the young guns, they and streetballireland.com proceed to the Dublin finals on Ausust the 4th.

DUBLIN:

Streetball Nationwide started with a bang this Saturday in Mount Temple with their most successfull tournament yet. There were twelve teams present at the Dublin qualifier battling for the five available places at the Finals to be held on August the 5th. Throughout the day there was a great atmosphere at the event and the team from Rap Ireland provided a DJ and MC's throughout the day.

This years standard was the best yet with a number of very strong teams present. Last years champions Killah Beez progressed easily winning their first two qualifiers. Possibly the best match of the day was when two of the stronger teams led by Pete Madsen and Joey Hastrep met. Led by Joeys shooting his and some tough D from Matt Kelly and Emaon his team ran out winners and went on to win their second game easily ensuring they will be at the finals. To stave off elimination Pete Madsen's team needed to win their next game and did so in style as Pete put on a shooting clinic droping three after three to secure his team a place in the finals. Kareems team which were semi finalists last year also progressed winning their two games as did a team led by a streetballer named Darius. Darius provided some of the highlights of the day with his crazy handle and he also won the dunk contest in stlye.

If you missed out on the chance to enter the dublin qualifier make sure to get to one of the two remaining qualifiers in Galway and Tralee for a chance to play in the finals.

Dublin Finals

The finals went on very well. It included the top 8 teams from all over the country. From the finalists we had from the other 2 tournaments we were sure of a very fun packed and competitive day. The whole event was watched by many players and spectators who had nothing but cheers for their supporting teams. A very big turnout contributed to the days success, many of the spectators were a combination of friends family members and also onlookers to enjoy a day of Basktball. The games went on continuously the only time a break was allowed was when the semi's were over and the start of the final four games began.

The winning team of the Streetball Nationwide event is the Whyte Rhynos. Second place came Sharp Shooters. The rest of the teams that qualified were Young Gunz, StreetbllIreland, Coast2Coast, Shot Callers, Killer Beez and Papi team. In a tidy nutshell all the teams were ready to play and the favourite were a team from Galway event(Limerick based); Young Gunz. It was a crying shame but thy lost all their games. from the time Streetball Nationwide took off till it ended everybody involved had a good time. It was properly co-ordinated and organised. The forces behind the event were Timi Martins, Simon Tresor, beni Shabani, Gerald Kennedy and the SBN Streeteam. Musch praise to them as without them the whole event will not have taken place.

All information on present and future streetball events can be found at www.streetballireland.com

below: 2007 SBN winners White Rhino

Stay tuned for a full video coming soon.......