Elizabeth Jane Walsh, or EJ as she is more commonly known, capped an outstanding individual performance for UCC away to Collegians, in Saturday's Sharwood's Irish Senior Cup quarter-finals, by scoring both goals in a 2-1 victory that wins the students a place in the semi-finals of the competition for the first time in the college's history.
There was more good news for the team in yesterday's semi-finals draw, which spared them their third successive away game against an Ulster side by pairing them with Old Alexandra, who they will play on home on the last day of the month. The top two teams in Ulster hockey, Pegasus and Randalstown, were drawn together in the second semi-final.
Jenny McDonough put Collegians one up after just eight minutes in the match at the Olympia Leisure Centre in Belfast, but Walsh equalised 10 minutes before the break when she forced the ball home from two yards after a fine run in to the circle by Aoife McCarthy.
Walsh twice came close to giving UCC the lead in the opening minutes of the second half, hitting the post with one of her efforts in the 51st minute. What proved to be the winner came in the 56th minute when captain Michelle O'Sullivan collected the ball after a short corner broke down, switched it right to Walsh, who slotted the ball past Jenny Gibson in the Collegians' goal.
"I think it was only when we heard the semi-final draw on the radio that the whole thing began to sink in," said O'Sullivan yesterday.
"We're just thrilled with the home draw for the semi-finals - there were so many people who would have loved to have seen us play Portadown (in the second round) and Collegians but we were drawn away each time. It will be a great day's hockey when we play Alex and a great day for College."
Old Alexandra's Deirdre Deasy will have plenty of information to give her team-mates about their semi-final opponents now that she's training with UCC since returning to Cork to work. Deasy was one of the Alex players singled out for praise by coach David Judge after a hard-fought victory over Loreto in Saturday's quarter-final. The tie seemed destined for extra-time when Hazel Agar scored the only goal of the match with just five minutes remaining to put Alex through to the last four.
Pegasus and Randalstown cruised in to the semi-finals with comprehensive victories over Belvedere and Glenanne, respectively. Nadine Long scored four of the Pegasus goals in their 7-0 win over Belvedere, while Randalstown beat Glenanne 3-0 in their quarter-final in Tallaght.
