After ending Munster's interest in this year's Sharwood's Irish Senior Cup by beating Harlequins and Church of Ireland respectively in Saturday's quarter-finals, old rivals Pegasus and Muckross have been drawn to meet in Belfast in next month's semi-finals. Hermes, too, must travel north for the semis after being drawn away to the surprise team of the competition, Coleraine.
Harlequins' hopes of upsetting the cup holders were all but ended in the first 15 minutes at Upper Malone when Tamara Stronge and Hilda Beamish gave Pegasus a 2-0 lead. Beamish's goal, set up by captain Jeanette Turner, was her team's 100th in just 18 matches this season and despite their best efforts Harlequins failed to add to the miserly two goals the Belfast side has conceded in the same number of games. Two minutes from time Beamish made it 101 goals in the current campaign, securing victory for Pegasus against her fellow Cork women.
Caryn Bentley, the only player to score against Pegasus this season (twice in a 6-2 league defeat last October), led her Coleraine team to a 2-1 win over Randalstown on Saturday in their first ever Irish Cup quarter-final. The 24-year-old South African international, who has won 49 caps for her country, was appointed player-coach at Coleraine in September 1997 and since then has transformed the club's fortunes. Avril Gordon gave Coleraine the lead, against a team that had beaten them 3-1 in the league recently, but Claire Parkhill equalised for Randalstown later in the first half. Bentley was yellow-carded early in the second period, for a body-check, but returned to the pitch to set up Ann Marie Quigley for the winner.
Bentley's team, who have only been out-scored by Pegasus in Ulster this season, now face the 1997 cup winners Hermes, who eased past last year's beaten finalists, Old Alexandra, at Milltown on Saturday. Carol Devine gave Hermes the lead in the fifth minute and Aisling Keane added two more in the second half in a game that failed to live up to expectations.
It was a case of what might have been for Church of Ireland at Rathdown where they missed a chance to take the lead early in the second half when Sandra O'Gorman saved a penalty stroke from Cathy Walsh. Muckross went on to score five goals, without reply, three from Orla Bell (including two strokes) making her the competition's top scorer with nine goals in three matches. Meanwhile in the Leinster League Loreto moved joint top of Senior A with Old Alexandra after Saturday's 4-1 win over Railway Union at Park Avenue.
