UCD wins cup double at Intervarsity Hockey Championships

Posted October 31, 2017

• Second double in two years for UCD Hockey

UCD women’s and men’s teams retained their status as all-Ireland champions after they secured final victories at the Irish Intervarsity Hockey Championships.

Taking the Chilean Cup title for the third consecutive year, (opens in a new window)UCD Ladies Hockey repeated the scoreline from the 2016 final as they beat Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) 6-1.

Irish captain Katie Mullan (MA Engineering, stage 1) opened the scoring for UCD with Deirdre Duke (BCL Law with Social Justice, 2017) making it 2-0 soon after.

QUB narrowed the deficit before UCD’s Abbie Russell (BA Sociology, stage 2) returned Collidge to a two-goal lead at half-time.

Second-half scores from Sorcha Clarke (BA Economics, 2017), Freya McDermott (BA Joint Honours, stage 1) and Elena Tice (BA Economics, stage 1) created a five-goal margin between the sides by the end of the game.

UCD claimed the intervarsity double at Grange Road today; round-up of the final day here:(opens in a new window)https://t.co/lGBRMTspcu (opens in a new window)pic.twitter.com/ZM4eqHIP16

— The Hook (@hookhockey) (opens in a new window)October 30, 2017

“We love playing varsities – it’s really important to us and a lot of fun so we are delighted to retain the trophy. It’s also great to see the lads also beating a very good UUJ side and we are obviously delighted with our win,” Deirdre Duke told (opens in a new window)HookHockey.com.

“We had a changed squad with a few girls not eligible to play anymore so it was great to see some of the younger girls come in and play really well. It just makes our squad even more competitive going back into the league next week.”

(opens in a new window)UCD Men’s Hockey faced a more difficult challenge in their final. They led from the beginning to come through against a tough Ulster University side.

Iain Styles (BA Economics, stage 3) put UCD ahead before Ulster University (UU) equalised through Irish international Neal Glassey.

University College Dublin responded with a quick-fire double from David Nolan (Business and Law, stage 3) and Andrew Meates (BA Geography, stage 3) before Glassey pulled another one back with a penalty for UU.

The Collidge men prevented any further damage and the game finished 3-2 to ensure the Mauritius Cup stayed in Belfield.

By: Jonny Baxter, digital journalist, UCD University Relations