Those familiar with the dynamics of women’s European club basketball have rightly christened Baxi Ferrol’s journey to the upcoming two-leg EuroCup final a complete fairy-tale.
The Spanish side will be raging underdogs again when they face French side ESBVA Villeneuve in the two-leg final over the next two Wednesday nights and a key player in their Cinderella story is a brilliant baller from Monasterevin.
Anyone who follows the Irish hardcourt game needs no introduction to Claire Melia.
The 6’3” quietly-spoken 25-year-old played Gaelic football for the Kildare minors before her prodigious basketball talent took over. She was key to Ireland winning a European ‘B’ U18 title in 2017 which also earned them historic European A status the following season.
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Laconic is invariably the adjective applied to her personality but she’s got a lethal baseline hook shot, can pivot to the rim off both sides, and also has great passing vision and three-pointers in her talent-crammed locker.
Melia first emerged with a dominant Rathangan school team and took the expected US college route to St Joseph’s, Philadelphia, an NCAA Division 1 school and alma mater of Tullamore’s Susan Moran, Ireland’s greatest ever female player who famously made it all the way to the WNBA in 2002.
Yet despite a 10-point game average for ‘Joe’s’, Melia was back home within a year to a queue of Irish Super League suitors.
After playing initially for Portlaoise she helped Cork club Glanmire to the domestic treble in 2022 (once scoring 42 points) and in 2024 was MVP for Killester in the National Cup final.
Her brief foray in the US and the fact she then trained and worked in childcare and is a self-confessed home bird lent the impression that she might then settle to remain a big fish in a tiny pond, only seriously tested occasionally by international duty.
But last August, and typically with no fanfare, Melia confounded presumptions again by signing for a club in Spain, one of European basketball’s strongholds.
She didn’t have a word of Spanish or an agent but is now starting, wearing number 13, for Galician side Baxi Ferrol.
Making the jump to play professionally in Spain’s top division (Liga Femenina) looked a leap that would test even Melia’s prodigious gifts in the paint.
That some Ferrol fans now sport tricolours and orange wigs to salute their titian-haired heroine underlines her quick transition.
Ferrol is a coastal city of roughly 65,000 people whose north western location means flights or bus journeys of up to eight hours are often required just for Spanish league games.
Baxi currently lie seventh behind superpowers like Valencia, Girona and Avenida, but their run to the final of Europe’s second tier cup competition has been box-office.
Rank outsiders in their first ever EuroCup, they started firmly off-Broadway in a qualifying round on September 26th, a month after Melia arrived.
Once through that, their group ominously included Galatasaray, yet they went to Turkey and pipped them by four to top their group.
They knocked out a Hungarian side in the last 16 and a club from Sardinia in the quarter-finals but when they faced Lyon in the semi-finals everyone expected Spain’s plucky underdogs to finally get their tails handed back to them.
Lyon had already dispatched Girona yet Ferrol, roared on by their 4,200 sell-out home crowd, won the first leg by a whopping 31-point margin and Melia was MVP. She topscored on 27 points and her defensive shift (which isn’t always her strength) on Dominque Malonga, a hotly tipped WNBA prospect and Olympic silver medallist last Summer, was equally impressive.
Lyon halved the Irish star’s scoring in winning the second leg but the damage was already done.
On aggregate Ferrol won by 20 points and Melia’s 13 points, nine rebounds and four assists second-time around proved just as vital.
So how did an Irish player who still doesn’t have an agent or speak the lingo settle and thrive so quickly at this level.
She puts it down to the style of play in Spain and Ferrol’s coach Lino Lopez.
“He had been contacting me since 2022 but the time just wasn’t right for me. I’m not sure where he saw me playing, I think it was probably with Irish underage teams. Rachael Vanderwal (a Canadian) who played here in Ireland years ago, had played for him, so I spoke to her and she said he was a very nice person.”
When Melia quit American college after a year it was presumed initially that home-sickness was the cause yet it was actually her integrity.
She was happy with her own court-time but not with how several of her US college team-mates were treated and felt standing by was condoning that behaviour.
Lopez, to her delight, is very player and family-oriented.
“I’m glad I didn’t let the experience in America affect me trying to play professionally, Spain is completely different. Our coach treats you like a person, you’re not just a number to him. He understands there’s a life outside basketball as well.
“I told myself that I’d go out for a year and give it a try. It’s different if you’re not being treated right or not (being) looked after. There’s certain situations where it just doesn’t suit some people and you have to stand up for yourself,” she remarks.
“Family is important to me and the coach understands that. Flights are easy to get and, when my family come out for games, I get to go and explore a bit with them too which is fantastic.”
The bumpier style of the European game also suits a player who is always unflinching and unflappable amid the chaotic traffic under the boards.
“The basketball in Spain is just a lot more physical,” she adds.
“Some people have speed, some people have strength. In Ireland, you can’t really use strength too much, you get offensive foul calls. You have to hold it back because other players aren’t as strong.
“It’s good to be able to use that in Spain. There’s some stuff that’s still not called, but you can use your power and strength going up to the basket. You have to or else you’re going to lose the ball!” she laughs.
Becoming a starter, she insists, was partly a lucky break. “We had another post player but she left. It would probably have been different if she was still here.”
The quality of her team-mates clearly challenges her while also allowing her concentrate on her own best assets. In Julia Pospisilova and point-guard Angela Mataix, Baxi have impressive Czechian and Spanish internationals who amplify her.
The local culture also suits her. “Ferrol reminds me a bit of Monasterevin. It’s a bit bigger but it’s very relaxed with a similar lifestyle and the fans are amazing.
“My housemate is American so it’s only in training and games that everything’s in Spanish and two of the girls translate for us.
“It’s a completely different experience from America. I thought it was going to be harder, especially with the language barrier, but it’s good. We travel a lot for games but you get to play people who were at the Olympics last Summer. You have to play more physically and play smarter but it’s very enjoyable.”
On Wednesday, Ferrol’s fans will be hanging from the rafters again, just two games away from inconceivable glory. Their French opponents won this title 10 years ago and were runners-up in the EuroLeague final, basketball’s equivalent of the Champions League, last year.
But that won’t cow Baxi or their laid-back Kildare star, the first home-grown Irish basketballer to line out in a European Cup final, whose every game on this giant-killing journey has accumulated further history and reputational capital for the Irish game.
Her path has not been without its lows. She tore her cruciate in her Leaving Cert year and lost her mother Shirley suddenly in 2022, a pivotal moment in her young life.
As she told the ‘Sideline Live’ podcast last month, her parents’ simple but wise counsel has always been her compass.
Her dad Ger’s best advice? “Don’t ever think you’re better than anyone else but don’t let anyone think they’re better than you.” And her mum’s? “Follow your dream.”
Melia got that tattooed on her arm last November and is now truly living it.
*The FIBA women’s 2025 EuroCup final on March 26th (7pm) and April 2nd (7.30pm) will be live streamed on the FIBA website.
