Mayo woman stars on historic night for Ireland

Mayo’s Hazel Finn has starred on an historic night for Irish basketball as the girls in green beat Group A top seeds Bosnia and Herzegovina 94-67 on Saturday night in the FIBA Women’s EuroBasket 2027 Qualifiers.

Ireland, ranked 83rd in the FIBA World Rankings, downed the 29th ranked Bosnia and Herzegovina in impressive fashion in what is Ireland’s first FIBA Women’s EuroBasket victory since 2021.

Hazel Finn from Kiltimagh was Ireland’s top scorer with sixteen points, having also top scored in their 69-53 defeat to Luxembourg at the National Basketball Arena last Wednesday.

Spectators at the Tallaght venue could hardly believe the transformation on Saturday night when Ireland impressively downed the team ranked 54 places above them in the world.

“We’ve now shown ourselves and everyone in the country that we are a force to be reckoned with,” a delighted Ireland captain Edel Thornton said afterwards.

Ireland were quick out of the blocks and got into an 11-4 lead, helped by threes from Thornton and Finn. Bosnia and Herzegovina brought it level at 11-11 by the midpoint of the quarter but Ireland would lead thereafter, ending an excellent opening quarter with a 27-15 advantage.

Back-to-back layups from Finn and Claire Melia had Ireland 33-22 up three and a half minutes into the second quarter. Bosnia’s naturalised American Kamiah Smalls was getting into her stride and brought it to within two, 36-34, with less than a minute to go, she’d picked up 13 points in the quarter alone, but Ireland held a 40-36 half-time lead.

Defensively Ireland were dogged and continued to build a score, thanks to free throws by Thornton, a pair of Hazel Finn layups and one each from Lorraine Scanlon and Thornton, to give them a 17 point lead, 59-42, midway through the third quarter.

Ireland finished the quarter with four Claire Melia free throws to leave them with a commanding 69-51 lead, Melia’s tally now up to thirteen points.

Ireland’s tempo didn’t let up in the fourth quarter and Bridget Herlihy picked up five points in the final 30 seconds, including a buzzer beating three at the death, to cap a brilliant team performance.

It was a stark contrast to their sixteen points loss at home to Luxembourg just four days previous. There they had rallied to outscore their opponents 27-17 in the fourth quarter, but ultimately they had too much ground to make up.

Luxembourg led 21-11 at the end of the first quarter but a corner three from Hazel Finn early in the second quarter got the crowd going. The Mayo woman was Ireland’s most potent threat in the quarter and she landed another from the three point line to reduce the deficit to 28-19.

The visitors steadied themselves however, and despite a Finn layup under the basket – bringing her tally to eight – Luxembourg were 37-21 in front at half-time.

The gap between the teams would grow to 23 points at one stage before Ireland closed the gap somewhat down the stretch.

But now they can take huge confidence into what will be their third game in six days when Hazel Finn and co visit the Latvian capital Riga this Tuesday for their third game of the Group A qualifiers against Israel.