Slovakia 75-68 Ireland

Irish forward Paddy Kelly was bitterly disappointed after Ireland’s senior men suffered a 75-68 loss away to the Slovak Republic in their final European qualifying game on Saturday.

'We are extremely disappointed to come away with a loss after the way we performed,' said the Killester clubman.

'We pretty much had them on the ropes for the second half but we just couldn’t finish the job off.

'It’s a game we should have won and it acts as no consolation that we played well,' he added.

'We are making progress but we desperately wanted to come away with two wins from this series of games.'

The Slovakia secured an early 13-6 lead after a series of threes by Daniel Novák and two by Anton Gavel.

A few scores by Conor Grace kept the Irish in close pursuit and they trailed by just eight points at the end of the first quarter. (16-24)

The second quarter saw the Irish continue their comeback with a Bryan Mullins lay-up helping to reduce the margin to just six points.

The Irish continued to chip away at the lead, cutting it to five at one point on the back of lay-ups by Mike Williams & Colin O’Reilly.

O’Reilly continued to score at will bringing the Irish to within three in the second half of the quarter (29-32).

The Slovakians bounced back with a pair of free throws and a three pointer courtesy of Peter Rerko to help the home side to a 42-33 half time lead.

The hosts extended their advantage at the start of the third quarter with a quick pair of threes through Martin Sykora and Gavel.

However, a Mullins three pointer reduced the arrears to just seven points. Mullins’ three re-ignited Ireland’s challenge and a lay-up from Williams brought Ireland to within three points of their opponents.

The Slovakian responded with a pair of free throws from Novak to help them to a 56-50 lead heading into the all important final quarter.

The Irish struck first in the final quarter with an Ian O’Boyle three pointer, but the Slovakians answered quickly back with a lay-up of their own.

The two sides went back and forth for the next several minutes allowing the Slovak Republic to sustain their lead of eight points.

O’Boyle hit another big three late in the quarter to cut the lead back to just five points, (61-66).

A series of Irish fouls late in the game gave the Slovak Republic a chance to stretch their lead to 10 in the closing minute.

A last effort by the Irish came up short and the Slovakians closed out the game to win 75-68.