Dylan Foley and Mark Cronin were the heroes on Wednesday night as UCC recorded their second penalty shootout win in the space of seven days at the National Games Development Centre in Abbotstown to advance into the last-four of the Sigerson Cup.

Having seen Foley repeat his heroics against Queen’s University last week in the same venue by saving three penalties from their opponents St Mary’s, Mark Cronin drilled home the final spot-kick to supplement earlier successful strikes by Cathail O’Mahony and Fionn Herlihy.

Dylan Geaney and Rian Quigley were agonisingly short of the target either side of Herlihy rattling the net, but the brilliance of Eire Og’s Foley ensured it was UCC who ultimately squeezed into the penultimate rounds.

It was the Leesiders who got the ball rolling in this contest with Mallow’s Shane Merritt superbly splitting the uprights off a long-distance free. Mary’s quickly responded with a place-ball effort of their own from Conor McConville, before UCC once again created daylight between themselves and their Belfast opponents.

A late addition to the starting line-up, Mitchelstown attacker O’Mahony cut inside from the left-wing and proceeded to drill a fierce strike to the bottom corner of the Mary’s net on seven minutes. The game was still very much in its infancy, however, and Cormac Murphy cut through a hole in the opposition defence to kick a fine point for the Ulster college.

Killian Falvey and Dingle’s Dylan Geaney were amongst a healthy Kerry contingent within UCC’s first 15 and they kicked consecutive scores to give their side a four-point lead.

Jude Campbell raised a white flag to leave the northerners just three points adrift (1-3 to 0-3) at the interval though and they cut even further into their deficit on the resumption with a pointed free from goalkeeper Charlie Smyth. This increased the pressure on UCC, but back-to-back points courtesy of Ruairi Murphy and Herlihy helped to ease any nerves they might have been experiencing.

Mary’s had a similar scoring burst via the boots of Dara O’Callaghan (his first act after coming on as a substitute) and midfielder Michael McCarville, before Bill Curtin strode forward from defence to kick an outstanding point for UCC at a right-hand angle.

Ruairi Murphy was an industrious presence around the middle-third for UCC and he added his second point from distance on the stroke of 50 minutes to offer Billy Morgan’s charges some breathing space.

However, Darragh Trainor found the range for Mary’s to leave the tie delicately poised and with more than five minutes of stoppage-time played, Matt Og McGleenan got on the end of a direct ball inside and fired beyond the reach of Foley.

While O’Mahony edged UCC back into the ascendancy at the beginning of the additional periods, Armagh duo Louis Hughes and O’Callaghan fired over at the opposite end to give Mary’s the lead for the very first time.

This left them with a slender 1-9 to 1-8 cushion heading into the closing 10 minutes of extra-time, but the sin-binning of MacDarragh Hynes did present a temporary numerical advantage to UCC.

Although Mary’s wing-back Danny Magee was also black carded moments after Hynes returned to the action, they appeared set for a dramatic win when a ’45’ from custodian Charlie Smyth cancelled out an earlier free from O’Mahony.

Yet the latter came to the rescue of UCC with an 86th-minute dead-ball strike and with the subsequent penalty battle going their way, there was joyous scenes amongst their camp when the game finally drew to a conclusion.

Scorers for UCC: C O’Mahony (1-3, 0-2f), R Murphy (0-2), S Merritt (’45’), D Geaney (f), K Falvey, F Herlihy, B Curtin (0-1 each).

Scorers for St Mary’s: M Og McGleenan (1-0), Charlie Smyth (1f, 1 ’45’), D O’Callaghan (2f) (0-2 each), C McConville (f), C Murphy, J Campbell, M McCarville, D Trainor, L Hughes (0-1 each).

UCC (Cork unless stated): D Foley, M Shanley, D O’Mahony, D Bourke (Kerry); S Merritt, B Murphy, B Curtin; R Murphy (Kerry), B Hartnett; J Murphy, F Herlihy, K Falvey (Kerry); M Cronin, C O’Mahony, D Geaney (Kerry).

Subs: M O’Gara (Kerry) for Flavey (44), S O’Connor (Tipperary) for Cronin (59), L Wall for Shanley (65), R Quigley (Tipperary) for O’Gara (71), Cronin for J Murphy (81).

ST MARY’S: Charlie Smyth (Down); C Milne (Derry), D Trainor (Monaghan), MD Hynes (Down); C McGettigan (Antrim), M McCallan (Tyrone), D Magee (Armagh); M McCarville (Monaghan), Cormac Smyth (Armagh); K Burke (Antrim), M Og McGleenan (Tyrone), C McConville (Armagh); C Murphy (Derry), S Donnelly (Armagh), J Campbell (Tyrone).

Subs: N Burns (Antrim) for Donnelly (h-t), D O’Callaghan (Armagh) for Cormac Smyth (41), S Quigley (Armagh) for Campbell (46), R McGrath (Down) for Magee (54), L Hughes (Armagh) for McConville (61), McConville for Burns (72), Magee for McGrath (75), Cormac Smyth for McGleenan (77).

Referee: B Tiernan (Dublin).