Midwest Finals 2025: Ain't No Rest for the Rebels

If one were to sum up the weekend of August 2nd-3rd, 2025 in one sentence it would be: “everything hurts.” 

In hurling, rookie Geoff O’ Connor’s shin was christened in his maiden Midwest voyage by an Akron hurley. In football, Kevin Clifford–the pride of Bantry!--sustained his first ever injury in over a decade of competitive football in Ireland when he strained his hamstring near the end of the first-half of the Rebels’ first game. In baseball, Dylan Conklin and Craig Larsen’s pride was forever shattered when they let a foul ball slip through their fingers, bounce off the concrete, and sail away to the fans down in the fancy seats in the lower level of the Buffalo Bison’s stadium.

The stage was Buffalo, NY: city of wings, kicks going wide right, and the 2025 Midwest GAA Championships. Our heroes, the Albany Rebels, entered town Friday night with big dreams. For the hurlers, it was the chance to defend their Midwest title and earn a trip to the USGAA finals in Philadelphia. For the footballers, it was the chance to see if they were the ones who could pull off a miracle against Pittsburgh (a team that one PIttsburgh official described to this author as really being more like a Junior B or C team rather than a Junior D team) and earn a berth in Philly for themselves. As Player-Coach Henry Best said, “f@#ked up upsets happen in sports all the time. Why can’t we be the f@#ked up ones today?”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkEhMtCsQ8w

Football:

Despite a change in seeding protocol, the Rebels somehow lucked into the play-in game for the second year in a row. Their first opponent would be Rochester at 11:40am. This was a team that the Rebels had smoked in Albany back at the beginning of the season. However, this was also a team that had recently pulled off a massive upset against Syracuse just a couple of weeks before. In many ways, this was a very different Rochester squad rolling into Buffalo.

But in many other ways, it wasn’t. Kudos to Rochester, they’d clearly been working on recycling the ball and working it upfield with patience. On this day, there would be few cheap turnovers for Albany to turn into breakaway scoring opportunities. However, the Rebels defended with strategic tenacity almost completely preventing Rochester from scoring from the run of play despite piercing runs from #’s 6 and 52. With the ball, the Rebels recycled well themselves and played like an “actual Gaelic football team”.

Snakebitten shooting and Rochester’s bald goalie having the game of his life held the Rebels to only a few points and a meager one or two point lead at the half (I can’t remember, it’s been a long weekend). Despite hurling abuse at his own team’s forwards throughout the day, veteran Cillian Flavin had encouraging words at the half which were echoed by the coach. The Rebels were in control: tighten up on kickouts, take your points and the goals will come.

While the goals never quite came in the way they usually do for full-forward Pierre Massena, the points started to accumulate with some fantastic passing sequences from rookies Jason Chicione, Max Weissman, and Alex Bielfeld. 

Final score:

Albany: 1-13 (16)

Roc City: 1-3 (6)

Next up: Semi-Final vs Pittsburgh  

Albany had faced this same Pittsburgh team two years ago in the Junior D football final. Back then, many of the Pittsburgh players were literally children and they ran circles around the Rebels on their way to a comfortable victory. Two years later, their voices had dropped, they were taller, and they had clearly been hitting the weightroom. 

It was impossible for the Rebels to lose. If the final score favored Pittsburgh, that’s the result everyone expected and the vanquished Rebels could enjoy Saturday night festivities with no thoughts of a championship match Sunday morning. If God willing the final score somehow favored Albany, then it would be an upset for the ages and a game they would all never forget.

Coach Henry Best had an idea of what an upset of this magnitude would require from his team. This is close to verbatim what this man actually chose to say in his pregame speech to his team in what would probably be their last competitive game of the year. “Deep deep deep down inside every last one of you is a little prick. For some of you, it's a pretty big prick. Today is the day to let your prick out. That team is younger, faster, stronger, and better at moving the ball around than we are. You need to be a prick today. Yank on their jerseys, get chippy, ugly the game up. That’s how we close the gap.”

Rookie Chris Hunley won the initial throw-in to start the game. A couple of passes later and Marc Massena scored the first point of the game handing Albany an unexpected lead, a lead they would hold for about the first quarter of the game.

There was only one place on the field where Albany had an edge over Pittsburgh: our full-forwards were far better than their full-backs. When Albany was able to work the ball up to Craig Larsen and Pierre Massena, scoring opportunities followed. Given Pittsburgh’s quality and athleticism (and the injury to key distributor Kevin Clifford), this was easier said than done. Yet. Pittsburgh’s talented attack was having a heck of a time lighting up the scoreboard as backs Des Norris, Tyler Wilcox, Dylan Conklin, Henry Best, and a bloodthirsty animal we call RC Helsing assaulted anyone who came inside the 40-meter arc with a ball. Pittsburgh did manage a cheap goal on a ball floated over emergency keeper (who otherwise did really well) Ryan Moloney’s head.

At the half, the Rebels were only down three or four points and they believed the impossible was possible.

Unfortunately, Father Time remains undefeated. The Rebels legs didn’t have much more than 90 minutes of football in them. In the 2nd half, Pittsburgh’s rested youth began to show. The Rebels kept fighting and managed to scratch out a goal and a couple more scores, but it was clear Pittsburgh was in control as the points began to pile on.

After the game, there wasn’t a single dour face on the Rebels sideline. This was about as strong a squad as Albany had ever assembled, playing about as good of football as the veterans, including the stalwart and not easily impressed Mark Adam, had ever seen the club play. That and fighting like hell for 120 minutes of football in one day was something to be proud of.

Final Score:

Albany: 1-6 (9)

Pittsburgh: 3-11 (20)

After being held to 20 points and receiving a bit of a scare, players from other clubs told this writer that Pittsburgh’s coach held a team meeting where he tore into his lads for over 10 minutes. This is the 2nd time in the last calendar year the Rebels have had this effect on a higher level opponent. Pittsburgh would go on to handle the Fenians for the Midwest Junior D Championship and the right to overwhelm other Junior D teams in Philadelphia.

Game Ball (Man of the Tournament): RC Helsing

You don’t often say the most impactful player on the field was a full-back, but most full-backs aren’t RC. He epitomizes what we look for in defenders: a man who steps on the field and morphs into a pitbull from an unstable home.

Total Minutes of Football in 6 hours: 120 minutes

Hurling

The hurlers were also bitten by the Albany curse of earning themselves a play-in game. Their first opponent was the Buffalo Fenians: a club that’s newer to the hurling scene and is undergoing the traditional growing pains the Rebels have managed to avoid thanks to the miracle of immigration. 

Worth noting, this writer doesn’t quite grasp the nuances of hurling despite finding it a delight to watch. To me, it looks like a lot of “someone hits (or tries to hit) the sliotar far…now it’s on the ground and there’s a screaming mob of flailing sticks fighting for it…now someone hits it far again…and it’s on the ground again…another frantic mob forms…sometimes the ref blows the whistle and everyone stops to yell.”  I’m going to do my best to recap the weekend, all the same.

In many ways, winning this year's championship would be much harder for the Albany hurlers. Enforcement of a rule that allows only two Irish-born players on the field at a time meant veterans Des Norris, Tim Kelly, and Stephen Mansell would be relegated to supporting roles while Stuart McMahon and Ian Maher were left to do much of the heavy lifting (this rule also did a number on the Rebel’s available substitutes).

The Fenians managed to give the Rebels a nice scare in their first match at 9am on Saturday. The game was close till later in the 2nd half as the Rebels pulled away to victory. Their second game of the day against Akron would be far scarier.

Akron

For both the hurlers and the footballers, this year was the year of the rookie. Both teams brought in large rookie classes with a number of instant impact players (something that is not usual or expected). Chris Duffy, Taylor Epting, and Geoff O’Connor highlighted the Rebels hurler rookies (with Geoff also being a football rookie).

Each one’s impact would be felt in the Akron game. Chris applied pressure to the ball in midfield, Geoff got stuck in in mobs on defense and wrecked havoc on sliotar carriers, while Taylor was an all around force of nature looking nothing like the newbie he is.

The game was tight throughout with Albany inching ahead only for Akron to come clawing back. A 2nd-half red card to veteran and coach Tim Gerrish appeared to seal Albany’s fate. 

With under a minute left, and the Rebels down 2, Geoff won the sliotar and fired a pass to the ageless wonder of County Clare, Stuart McMahon. Knowing the score, Stuart picked up his head and spotted Ian Maher behind the Akron defense. He ripped a line-drive pass right to him. Ian caught the sliotar cleanly with his bare hand and was in on goal. He whipped a shot past the keeper. The Rebels sideline exploded with elation. The ref blew the final whistle and that was it. With no time to spare, the Rebels had advanced to their third championship game in their third year with a functioning hurling team.

Pittsburgh (but hurling this time)

The Pittsburgh Junior D hurlers aren’t ridiculous like their Junior D football team. Let there be no doubt, they are young, squirrely, and more than capable. But they are on the same level as the rest of the competition. Even with Tim Gerrish serving a suspension, the Rebels had every right to believe they were going to repeat as champions. And for most of the game, it looked like they would.

For most of the first half, Albany controlled the game. Racking up scores with multiple goals from Ian Maher. To their credit, Pittsburgh battled back each time, never allowing the Rebels to extend their lead beyond 7 points. Heroic performances from Cam Barker, Taylor Epting, and fill-in goalie Joe Bridgeman kept Pittsburgh from bringing the game to a tie even when they were dominating stretches of play. 

An unfortunate first-half injury to Dave Farnan rendered a Rebels bench already thinned by a red-card against Akron and the 2 Irish rule practically barren. Pittsburgh’s advantage in numbers began to show as the 2nd half wore on. Rebel legs which had fought for 120 minutes with few subs the day before, grew heavy 45 minutes in with no subs during the championship game. Pittsburgh was just a bit fresher and a bit faster to every ball. The scores began to pile-up. Soon a narrow Rebels lead had become a four point deficit. Then, with Albany down six and less than 10 minutes to go, Ian Maher received two yellow cards in quick succession for dissent and was ejected from the game. The Rebels managed one late score from Stuart McMahon, but by then their fate was sealed. For the third year in a row, the Midwest would have a different Junior D hurling champion. Congratulations, Pittsburgh.

This weekend marked the end of Tim Gerrish and Ian Maher’s playing careers with the Albany Rebels. The two began playing football with the Rebels over a decade ago and together played a significant role in willing the Rebels hurling team into existence and to a championship last year. As their storied careers come to an end, it is now the task of the Rebels returning hurlers to retool and return better than ever. With rookies like Taylor Epting, Geoff O’Connor, and Chris Duffy in the mix, there’s no reason they can’t.

Total minutes of Hurling in a little over 24 hours: 180 minutes

2025 season, over and out.