Banbridge Academy are the Ulster Hockey Schools’ Champions once again after winning the McCullough Cup in a tight final against Lisburn’s Wallace High School.

Josh Brownlee thought he had given the Academy the lead in the first quarter but his goal after some sublime aerial skills was ruled out by the umpire. Both teams had chances from penalty corners but neither could get a shot on target until Brownlee scored the only goal of the game when he fired a drag flick at speed past the Wallace goalkeeper, to the delight of the sizeable Academy support.

The Academy attacked at will in the second half but the final pass seemed to go awry every time as they failed to turn dominance into circle penetrations. Even when Adam McKee broke through the Wallace defence to be one-on-one with the goalkeeper, he saw the keeper produce a fantastic double save to keep the match on a knife-edge. Unbelievably, Wallace were awarded nine penalty corners in a row through re-awards but a fantastic Academy defensive display from Matthew Stevenson, Lukas Moles, Aaron Baxter, Ben Walker, Matthew Spence and goalkeeper Denver Golbey prevented Wallace from converting any of these set-plays as the game finished 1-0 to the Bann boys.

Coach Simon Jess looked on proudly as captain Stevenson lifted high the McCullough Cup and Moles was awarded the man-of-the-match trophy.

Squad: Denver Golbey, Jack Fleming, Matthew Stevenson, Aaron Baxter, Matthew Spence, Ben Walker, Max Nicholson, Ben Thompson, Harry Taylor, Lukas Moles, Josh Baird, Adam McKee, Josh Osborne, James Evans, Josh Brownlee, Adam Ewart, Joshua Cash, Charlie Taylor.