Trinity picked up their first outright title in the Irish Universities Championship for 12 years at College Park on Friday. Under the captaincy of Sanil Gupta, DUCC won all three of their games in the tournament with ease and will be expected to form the bulk of the Irish Universities squad for the Hone-McGregor tournament in Cambridge next week.
An opening stand of 220 by David Cosgrave and Diarmuid Tucker, who both made centuries, saw off Griffith College in the quarter-final, and won a place in the final tournament back in College Park.
On Wednesday UCD bowled out TUD for 120 and chased that easily, while the second semi-final saw Trinity make 272 against Dublin Business School. Theo Dempsey smashed four straight sixes in making 47 in about 20 balls, while Eoghan Grehan (42), Jack Atkinson (38), Mikey O’Reilly (38) and David Cosgrave (33) all contributed to a formidable 45-over total.
Dempsey blew away the top order, taking 4-21, as DBS collapsed to 85 all out.
The final followed a similar course, with Trinity making 193 (Gupta 58, Gavin Hoey 38, Conor Austin 2-14) and bowling out UCD for 67 (Craig Mackay 14, Andrew Vincent 10, Hoey 4-16, Dempsey 3-10).
Irish Universities play Leprechauns in College Park on Wednesday June 8th before flying to take part in the Hone-McGregor tournament at Fenner’s. On Tuesday 14th June they play Scottish Universities and the next day Cambridge University.
The tournament first took place in 2015 and was won by Ireland in 2016, under captain Will von Behr, 2017 (Matthew McCord) and 2018 (Jack Balbirnie). The tournament was cancelled in 2019, 2020 and 2021.
