Lucy McCartan is our 2020 Sports Star of the Year
Soccer and ladies’ Gaelic football star Lucy McCartan is the winner of the 2020 Westmeath Examiner Sports Star of the Year award, which is kindly sponsored by Home Instead Midlands.
Sport may have ground to a halt for a substantial portion of 2020, but Lucy McCartan just kept going – combining a soccer career with Dublin club Peamount United, and ladies’ football duties with both Westmeath and her club, St Loman’s, Mullingar.
Orchestrating things in midfield for Peamount, Lucy is very much at the heart of the club’s ongoing dominance of the women’s domestic soccer scene. In a season shortened by the ravages of Covid-19, she finished the year with a league and cup medal, with Peamount hammering Cork City 6-0 in the televised FAI Women’s Cup final in December.
The Mullingar Athletic alumna, capped for Ireland at various underage levels, was also on the Peamount side which was unlucky to lose out to Glasgow City in the qualifiers for the UEFA Women’s Champions League, although the Mullingar native and her teammates will get another crack at Europe again later this year.
As the soccer season progressed, Lucy was also one of Westmeath’s highest scoring forwards as they plotted a route back to senior grade in ladies’ football.
In the shortened championship campaign, Lucy starred as the Lake County swept aside Longford in their opening round of the All-Ireland ladies’ IFC, before edging past Roscommon in the semi-final. In the decider against Meath in Croke Park last December, she found the net twice, but as a collective Westmeath were unable to get the better of a determined Royal side.
A former student of Loreto College, Mullingar who now studies medicine at University College, Dublin, Lucy is one to watch in 2021, and is a deserving Westmeath Examiner/Home Instead Sports Star of the Year.
Roll of honour: Westmeath Examiner Sports Stars of the Year, 2007-2020
2007: Martin Fagan (athletics)
2008: Brendan Murtagh (hurling)
2009: John Joe Nevin (boxing)
2010: Paul Greville (hurling)
2011: Gerry Duffy (endurance)
2012: John Joe Nevin (boxing)
2013: John Joe Nevin (boxing)
2014: Robbie McCarthy Jnr (handball)
2015: Damien Shaw (cycling)
2016: Gigginstown House Stud (horse racing)
2017: The Westmeath junior camogie team (camogie)
2018: Derek McGee (motorcycling)
2019: Pamela Greville (camogie)
2020: Lucy McCartan (soccer/ladies’ football)