New American import Dillon Stith from David Kelly, Belfast Telegraph
Belfast Star fell to an agonising 82-79 defeat away to Moycullen on Saturday night in the All Ireland Premier League but seem to have unearthed a real gem in their American Dillon Stith.
Star were on their way to defeat with 10 seconds remaining of normal time when Fergal Toner drained a three-pointer to send the game into overtime at 74-all.
The momentum seemed to be with Star as they edged ahead but got into foul trouble and four free-throws handed victory to the home side.
But the outstanding player on the court was Stith who only arrived in Belfast in the early hours of Friday morning, having flown in from the States. Allied to his 36-point contribution was the fine performance of captain Keelan Cairns who had 26 points and 11 rebounds.
Father and son Danny and Adrian Fulton were in charge of Star as head coach Darren O'Neill was out of the country as was Paddy McGaharan on a basketball trip with their school.
Veteran coach Danny, who led Star to All Ireland glory in the 1990s, believes Stith will be a major asset to the Belfast side as they seek to climb up the table.
"You could see right away that Dillon is a quality player. He's very smart and he can play in y position. I think he's going to make huge difference," said Fulton. "Before the match, though, I had told the lads that Dillon could play like Michael Jordan and it still wouldn't be enough if the rest of them didn't back him up and to some degree that's what happened.
"The lads put in a good performance but we needed more points from some of the other guys but credit to Moycullen they had some good individual performances - young James Loughnane was excellent."
On the back of two consecutive defeats to Moycullen, Star will face them again in the second round of the Cup in two weeks time
Belfast Star fell to an agonising 82-79 defeat away to Moycullen on Saturday night in the All Ireland Premier League but seem to have unearthed a real gem in their American Dillon Stith.
Star were on their way to defeat with 10 seconds remaining of normal time when Fergal Toner drained a three-pointer to send the game into overtime at 74-all.
The momentum seemed to be with Star as they edged ahead but got into foul trouble and four free-throws handed victory to the home side.
But the outstanding player on the court was Stith who only arrived in Belfast in the early hours of Friday morning, having flown in from the States. Allied to his 36-point contribution was the fine performance of captain Keelan Cairns who had 26 points and 11 rebounds.
Father and son Danny and Adrian Fulton were in charge of Star as head coach Darren O'Neill was out of the country as was Paddy McGaharan on a basketball trip with their school.
Veteran coach Danny, who led Star to All Ireland glory in the 1990s, believes Stith will be a major asset to the Belfast side as they seek to climb up the table.
"You could see right away that Dillon is a quality player. He's very smart and he can play in y position. I think he's going to make huge difference," said Fulton. "Before the match, though, I had told the lads that Dillon could play like Michael Jordan and it still wouldn't be enough if the rest of them didn't back him up and to some degree that's what happened.
"The lads put in a good performance but we needed more points from some of the other guys but credit to Moycullen they had some good individual performances - young James Loughnane was excellent."
On the back of two consecutive defeats to Moycullen, Star will face them again in the second round of the Cup in two weeks time
