Casement SC Antrim Junior Hurling Championship, Group Two
Gort na Móna 0-13 St Brigid's, Cloughmills 1-19
A GAME of two halves at Enright Park went the way of Cloughmills in the Antrim Junior Hurling Championship as they overturned a six-point deficit at the break to win by nine.
On a windy day, the hosts built what looked a decent six-point lead lead, but failed to register after the break as they finished with 13, their challenge fading away in the second half.
Eoin Dobbin put the visitors into an early lead from a free, but with a substantial wind at their backs, the Gorts began to find their range with Declan Hughes levelling and then Desi McClean led the way, slinging over some fine points from frees and play, while Patrick McCaffrey was accurate from long range placed balls.
Michael Devlin pointed into the teeth of the wind for Cloughmills, but the Gorts were building a nice lead as Neil Henry landed from deep and they were six ahead with McCaffrey and McClean slinging over fine scores from opposite sidelines.
Liam Kearns and McClean swapped points before Kevin O'Boyle got on the end of a poc-out to drill over for the visitors and Eoin Dobbin split the posts to narrow the gap, but two McCaffrey points late in the half gave the Gorts a 0-13 to 0-7 lead at the change of ends.
Neil Henry runs at the Cloughmills defence
Cloughmills came out in the second half with much more purpose and a trio of Dobbin frees halved the gap as the hosts began to struggle to get anything going in attack.
Momentum have firmly shifted and the Biddies continued to eat into the gap and were level thanks to points from Liam Kearns, Ruairi Laverty Michael Devlin.
Stephen Smyth edged the visitors ahead with a point on the turn midway through the second period and there was no looking back as Dobbin added another.
At the other end, Darren Boyd had a drive at goal stopped by Christopher McKernan, but they would fail to score in the second period with Cloughmills putting the game to bed on 53 minutes as a stray poc-out intercepted by Liam Kearns who finished from close range.
Things went from bad to worse for the hosts as Thomas McCaffrey was shown red for a wild pull on Aaron McGuckian with Nathan Gibson picking dip a second yellow in stoppage time.
Cloughmills finished with points from Ruairi Laverty, Dobbin and Matthew Reid to seal the win and an opening win.
GORT NA MÓNA: J Kelly Jnr; J Connolly, C Devlin, C Henry; D Dixon, P McHugh, N Gibson; N Henry (0-1), G McKenna; N Healy, P McCaffrey (0-4, 2 frees), D Boyd; D Hughes (0-1), T McCaffrey, D McClean (0-7, 4 frees)
Subs: E Loughran for D Dixon (15), M McMullan for J Connolly (24), M Carlin for N Healy (38)
CLOUGHMILLS: C McKernan; M Dobbin, S McKendry, S Martin; K O'Boyle (0-1), C Blair, J Duffin; R Laverty (0-2), J Smyth; E Dobbin (0-9, 7 frees), M Devlin (0-2), L Kearns (1-2); C Butler,O Corrigan, S Smyth (0-2).
Subs: C Laverty for O Corrigan (41), R Dobbin for J Smyth (44), M Reid (0-1) for C Butler (50), C McGuckian for S Martin (53).
REFEREE: John O'Connor (Ballygalget)
