Our U13 A side welcomed their first away win of the season in the league when they travelled to Castleisland on Saturday. The lads starting brightly and controlling the opening minutes of this contest, putting the home team under pressure right from the start. Excellent work rate in the middle of the park from Shane Edwards, Sean O'Leary Griffin, and Jack Kelly ensured Ballyhar created plenty of chances. Ballyhar took the lead on 9 minutes when Ryan Vickers slipped Ryan Quilter through, who used his strength to hold off the centre back and beat the oncoming keeper for the opener. Ballyhar kept pushing and enjoying the majority of the possession. The on the 2 min mark, Callum Templeman, who was excellent at left back, found Vickers down the left who in turn fed Quilter, who again made no mistake to make it 2 nil to Ballyhar. Castleisland reacted and began to grow into the game and caused the Ballyhar backline a few problems, most notably from a corner that eventually rattled the crossbar with the defence clearing the danger. H/T 0-2

Castleisland kept up the pressure in the 2nd half and pushed on to try pull one back, but the Ballyhar defense held out resolutely with Jamie O'Brien pulling off an exceptional double block inside his own box when the home side looked destined to score. The rest of the half was a well contested one with both sides playing lovely attacking football, but both defences snuffed out any other scoring opportunities and Ballyhar held on for a hard fought victory.

It was an exceptional team performance by all 14 on the panel today with many fantastic individual performances from the likes of Shane Edwards, Sean O'Leary Griffin, Ryan Quilter and Daire Cornally... however the Man of the Match award goes to Jamie O Brien,who was outstanding at centre back.