Physical Education

Last month was a hugely successful one for the school’s basketball teams. 18 pupils travelled to New York and Orlando for ten days where they played 5 games and caught two NBA games. Click on the image below to find out more and view photographs from the trip.

The Co Down Cross Country Championship were held on Tuesday 2nd February at Delamont Country Park.

Minor Boys Team winners – Christopher Kelly, Mikal Zoboroski, Ronan Quinn, Nicholas Kearney, Dairmuid Mc Nulty, Nathan Kelly, Kaelan power, Declan Mc Crory.

Minor Boy – Christopher Kelly came 6th out of over 100

Minor Girl – Laura Reid came 7th out of 100 girls! 

Intermediate Boys Team 3rd – Michael Robinson, Owen Lavery, Ryan Mc Kee, Kevin Dornan.

Intermediate Boy – Michael Robinson came 6th out of 100 boys!

Intermediate Girl – Ellen Gracey came 7th out of 100 girls! 

All of the above runners have qualifed for the Ulster Cross Country Championship on Wednesday 24th February at Mallusk Playing Fields. Good Luck.

Click on the image below to see some pictures.

U19 All-Ireland Play-offs National Basketball Arena, Dublin

Aquinas 54        Abbey Donegal  45

Aquinas 59        Knockbeg College, Carlow 21

All-Ireland Quarter Final

Aquinas 54        St Fintan’s Sutton 57

Aquinas students will soon be going on a USA Basketball tour to NYC & Orlando. The team will be leaving on Friday 5 February, returning on Monday 15 February and playing 5 games and going to two NBA games.

Aquinas Senior Gaelic Football team meet fierce rival St Patrick’s Knock in the quarter-final of the O’Doherty cup on the week beginning the 8th February.

Aquinas completed a very competitive McLarnon campaign in which they lost narrowly to La Salle, Belfast, St Louis, Ballymena and St Louis, Kilkeel in the group stages.  Aquinas were well beaten by St Peter’s Lurgan, one of the favourites to win the McLarnon this year, in their last group game.  Aquinas achieved a walk over against Ballyshannon.

Aquinas had played four warm up matches before the campaign drawing with St Patrick’s Knock and St Malachys Belfast and losing to St Patrick’s Downpatrick and Rathmore.

Aquinas have stepped up a level after last year’s senior Brother Nolan success and  the all-Ireland C final against Strokestown, Roscommon.  This has been a tough but rewarding year.  The players have proved they can compete at this level but the results unfortunately did not come.  However, this team has set the bench mark for future years. 

The quarter-final in the O’Doherty cup is intriguing as Knock and Aquinas seem to be at a similar level this year which will add to the excitement of this game.

Aquinas players need to get back to training on Monday 24th January if they are going to be able to compete with Knock.  Training begins at 1.00pm, all players to be in the sportshall changing rooms for 12.30pm.  This has been a difficult time to get to training due to examinations but Mr Evans hopes that there will be a good turn out on Monday.

Congratulations to all The girls that have been selected for the Belfast U13 Netball Regional Squ

The following girls have been successful ,

GA  Jeanette Black
GK  Niamh Kelly
GK  Joanne Madden McKee
WD  Eimear Magee
GS  Catherine Melotte

Aquinas 83 (48)   AVS, Donegal 53 (23)

Aquinas continued their good start to the season click on the link below for the match report

Congratulations to Frances Hewitt (Yr11), Catherine Conaghan (Yr11), Aideen Murphy (Yr11) and Aislinn McFarland (Yr10) who have been selected onto the U15 Regional Academy Netball Squad which will be playing in the Youth Games in May 2010.

Having fallen at the semi-final stage last year the Year 10 footballers went one better yesterday by reaching the Final of the BT Ennis Cup. Click on the image below to find out more.

Click on the School crest below to read about the history of Gaelic footbal at Aquinas.

Aquinas U19s lost out in the final of the U19A plate final to 57-50 Colaiste Eanna in Dublin on Thursday.

Aquinas won semi final at Monasterevin Co Kildare on Saturday 14th March by 1-07 to 0-08

Click on the links below to view external reports from the game

Link 1 (Bredagh GAC)
Link 2 (Carryduff GAC)

After three final losses, Aquinas Grammar eventually achieve their goal. 

This is Aquinas Grammar’s 10th year in the Bro Nolan cup.  Aquinas beat a well – drilled Loreto College Coleraine team 1-10 to 1-8 in the final of the Bro Nolan cup on Friday 20th February  in the mid Ulster sports arena Cookstown.

Click the image below to read reports and view images from the match

Aquinas U19 Basketball Team scored a huge slam dunk with printing company Graham & Heslip who have provided the team with track suits.

The Ravenhill Road school travel to Limerick this weekend for the U19 ‘A’ All-Ireland play-offs and face teams from Killarney, Galway & Sligo.

The team have had a lot of success over the last few years playing at the highest level of basketball in Ireland and are hoping to reach the semi finals scheduled for the end of March.

Diarmuid McGarry, Managing Director ….We are delighted to support a local school, recognising the effort of Mr McAufield in coaching the team. To have our logo on the track suits gives us great exposure wherever they travel and we wish the team the best of luck in the up-coming tournament.

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE JUNIOR BOYS TEAM

The Team placed 2nd in their section and will be running at the Ulster Cross Country Championships on Wednesday 25th February at Mallusk

Michael Robinson 2nd
Donal McKeever 11th
Owen Lavery 14th
Ryan Murray 38th
Nathan Kelly 100th

Congratulations to Katie McGrath Year 14 who came 4th in the Senior race. Katie has also gained a place in the Ulster finals at Mallusk.

Click the image below to view pictures from the day.

Aquinas U16 basketball team returned from the All-Ireland play-offs in Galway with their heads held high despite failing to qualify for the semi finals.

Four teams came together on Saturday in Calasanctius College, Oranmore on Saturday despite the harsh winter weather.  The host school proved much too strong for their visitors from Belfast, Killarney and Castleblayney and marched onward to the semi finals.

Click on the image below to read the full report.

Aquinas beat a well – drilled Lumen Christi team 2-12 to 1-8 in the semi-final of the Bro Nolan cup on Wednesday 4th February under lights in Cookstown. 

Click the image below to find out more

U19A

St Malachys 53   Aquinas 47

Aquinas       87  St Pat’s Dungannon       22

U16A

St Malachy’s  48      Aquinas                   36

Aquinas        69      St Pat’s Dungannon  53

U19B

Aquinas      40     St Mary’s Belfast    47

Newry High  50    Aquinas                 57

Aquinas U16s produced their best performance of the season so far to qualify ahead of St Pat’s Dungannon for the Ulster League final against St Malachy’s.

With the season on the line in a must win game the Year 11s raced into an early 25-9 lead after 8 minutes.  Ciaran McFralnd and Ronan McKegney were in great shooting form getting 16 points between them.  Ryan McGarry and Peter Horner were inspirational in the second quarter as Aquinas maintained their advantage.  However the Tyrone school rallied well in the second half and got the lead down to 13 points.  However, Ryan McGarry steadied the nerves of the players with some great scores and Aquinas held on to win and clinch a showdown against an excellent St Malachy’s team. 

Top Scorers:      Ryan McGarry (23); Ciaran McFarland (14); Peter Horner (11); Ronan McKegney (8)

They will be joined at the Finals Day by the U19s who ran riot against a weakened Dungannon team.  Despite defeat against St Malachy’s last week coaches Kevin Foley and Joe McAufield are quietly confident of causing an upset in what is anticipated as the top clash in the Ulster Finals.

 The re-arranged date for both finals is Thursday 18 Dec @ UUJ (Sports Hall 1)

Click on the links below to view the scenes from a DVD made by Jerome Quinn on our Year 8 Ulster Colleges C Blitz winners in June 2008.

  High quality

U16A    St Pat’s Academy Dungannon    49         Aquinas 39

U19A    St Pat’s Academy Dungannon    21         Aquinas 68

U19B    Our Lady’s & St Patricks Knock  30         Aquinas 33

Congratulations to Maeve Mc Quillan who has been selected, for the second year, onto the Northern Ireland under 17 netball squad.

Congratulations to the following girls who have been selected onto the under 15 regional development squad; Claire McVeigh, Rachel Goldsmith, Rachel Ferguson, Moya McQuillan, Orlaith Downey, Aoife Sheridan and Amy Mc Cormick

The Aquinas Sports Day 2008 was a great success. Click on the image below to view some images from the day.

Aquinas Grammar year 8 Gaelic football team won the Ulster Colleges year 8 Football blitz Bro J M Murphy Cup and their first ever Ulster Colleges title after 15 years of trying. 

Clicck on the image below to learn more about this momentous occasion.

Click below toview images from the Tag Rugby Tournament.

This is a school based competition run by the Norwich Union.  The winner of the competition is the school with the highest number of votes placed by the extended school  community. Pass this site information to family and friends. Hopefully we will be lucky enough to win the money and use it tocontribute to upgrading Physical Education facilities.Click the link below to view details of our scheme

or click on the button to place a vote

Photo of the two Irish Internationals playing in the European Championships this summer for Ireland.

Ben Horner with the U16s in Bosnia (15-24 August) and Joe Burns with the U18s in Hungary (25 July – 4 August).

Ben will earn his first cap against England on Saturday 3 May in the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham.

Both players are travelling to preparation tournaments in Luxemburg & Serbia prior to the Europeans.

Click here to view older sporting news

Click the Basketball to view the results

Ben Horner (Year 12) & Joe Burns (Year 13) have both been selected to play for Ireland in the U16 & U18 European Basketball Championships this summer.

They have been training with their 18 player squads since January 2007 and both made their 12 man panels that were announced last week.    

The U18 championships take place July 25 to August 4 in Hungary while the U16 championships take place 15-24 August in Bosnia.  Each team will play 9 games in the European Championships.

Ben is also flying to Birmingham on Saturday 3 May to play England with the U16 team.

Aquinas secured a 2-11 to 2-10 win over a young talented St Joseph’s Crossmaglen
Team in their opening game in the Ulster Colleges Bro Nolan senior C competition at the college pitches in Armagh. 
During the game Aquinas shot 20 scoreable wides which nearly cost them victory.  A small Crossmaglen team who played a short, fast passing game caused Aquinas many problems.  However, with steady performances from Thomas Artherton, Dermot Dignam, Conal Mahon O’Neill and captain John Mckenna.  Aquinas steered to a narrow victory.

Aquinas 4-8 Edmund Rice 1-6
Aquinas Grammar faced a determined Edmund Rice team who caused Aquinas lots of problems with their physicality.  Not until the last 15 minutes did Aquinas finally get on top of Edmund Rice.
Conal Mahon O’Neil, Dermot Dignam Matthew Hollywood and John McKenna were very strong for Aquinas.  Star of the game was Darragh Brownlee who turned in a McCrory standard performance.

After this win Aquinas will meet either St Malachys, Belfast, Lumen Christi, Derry or Glen Road CBS in the semi-final.

Aquinas will be training on the county Down sand dunes over the Christmas period.  Good Luck lads.

For the latest Basketball News click on the basketball.

The Aquinas Senior Gaelic team played in the Queen’s Invitational Sevens tournament on Friday 29th of September.Click on the image below to view some pictures from the day and to find out how the team got on.

Click the image below to view some of the images from Aquinas Sports Day 2007

The Cook Islands U19 Rugby team took time out from the U19 World cup to visit Aquinas. During their visit the team met with members of the Aquinas squad and put on a display of their world famous Haka. To view images from the visit click on the image below or click on the icons below to view or save a video clip

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Aquinas claimed their second Ulster Schools Basketball title this year with a 32-18 victory over arch rivals St Malachy’s.
 

A stifling defensive performance from Aquinas shut down St Malachy’s playmakers Eoin Duffy and Tom Dougherty while Ryan McGarry and Peter Horner contributed handsomely on the offensive end for Aquinas.  However, the general all round ability of Caolan McWilliams shone through.
 

Team captain Ben Scullion will lead the team to the All-Ireland play-offs in Limerick over May Day weekend where the side hope to at least emulate the heroics of the current u16 team who reached the semi final in 2004.
 

Team:       Ben Scullion (capt); Peter Horner; Ryan McGarry; Caolan McWilliams; Ciaran McFarland; Ronan McKegney; Joseph Morrison; Stephen Doherty; Oisin McKeever; Ruairi Sheridan; Dario  Angelone; Conor Marley; Joseph Shields

FOUR players from Aquinas have been selected to various Irish International Basketball squads for training every weekend from Easter till the end of August.
Joe Burns (12R) has made the 20 man squad of the Irish U17 team.
Ben Horner (11D), Jack McConaghy (11J) and Ryan Magee (11J) are all members of the Irish U15 squad.
All players have represented Ulster schoolboys over the last three years. Their school coach Joe McAufield is also assistant coach of the Irish u15 girls’ squad who are preparing for the 2008 European championships.
 

Brother Nolan Final Sunday 12.00pm CasementPark

 Aquinas V Edmund Rice

Good luck to all the players.
An excellent opportunity to make history in being the first GAA team in the school to win an Ulster title.

Special mention to the year 14s as this will be their last chance to bring home some silverware.

Find out how the Team got on in the semi-final against St Malachy’s by clicking on the image below