St Mary’s took the full three points when comfortably seeing off South Belfast side Ulidia FC at a blustery Mallusk on Saturday.
St Mary’s skipper Oliver Breen elected to play with the wind advantage in the first period while Eoin McNicholl came closest to opening the scoring in the early minutes when clipping the woodwork direct from a corner kick.
The deadlock was broken for St Mary’s on fifteen minutes when frontman Conal Breen flicked a pass through to Eoin O’Reilly to open the scoring and Jack Parke added to their tally minutes later getting on the end of NcNicholl’s precise cross.
Oliver Breen scuffed a penalty kick past the post for St Mary’s as the half time break approached while at the other end, fullbacks Aidan Quinn and Oisin Donaghy dealt with many of the Ulidia attacks with the minimum of fuss.
As the teams changed ends for the second period, the Ulidia comeback never materialised as an Eoin McNicholl free kick found Eoin O’Reilly lurking twelve yards out to register a third St Mary’s goal.
O’Reilly went on to complete his hat-trick on forty minutes, finishing off a great move down the left hand side involving Cormac Morgan, Cathal McGarrity and Jack Parke.
Aided by the strong breeze, Ulidia applied some pressure to the St Mary’s defence and forced a several corners but some stout defending by Trevor McCormick, Patrick Ross and Cormac Morgan kept the St Mary’s clean sheet intact.
St Mary’s added a further three goals from the in-form Jack Parke, an O’Reilly header and an Oliver Breen penalty kick while the scoring was complete in the dying minutes when Ulidia hammered a free kick past St Mary’s stand-in goalie Morgan for a well deserved consolation.
