Story and photos by Les Tan/Red Sports. Additional photos by reader Tan Qun Xiang

b division west zone basketball

Wong Keng Yang (Unity #8) driving past Marcus Chin (Jurong #12). Keng Yang finished with 19 points and MVP honours. (Photo 1 © Les Tan/Red Sports)

Jurong East Sports Hall, Tuesday, March 8, 2011 — Unity Secondary beat Jurong Secondary 84-54 to defend their West Zone B Division Basketball Championship title. Unity led 40-26 at half-time.

This was Unity’s third zonal title in five consecutive final appearances. They had beaten New Town Secondary 81-64 in the semi-finals while Jurong saw off Hua Yi Secondary 88-38.

Unity captain Wong Keng Yang (#8), who finished with 19 points, picked up the Most Valuable Player (MVP) award.

“We were good in defence and had a lot of teamwork,” said Keng Yang about his team. “It was excellent play and everyone did a good job. However, we need to improve on our stamina, especially in the third and fourth quarter.”

Jurong kept it close for the opening minutes of the first quarter but with 2:50 left in the quarter, Unity had established a seven-point 18-11 lead. Unity An 8-2 Unity run gave them a 13-point lead at 26-13 but Jurong scored five unanswered points to trail only by eight (26-18) at the end of the first.

Jurong’s Chun Wang Xuan (#15) scored eight of his team’s 18 first-quarter points while there was no surprise for Unity supporters to see Delvin Goh (#14) contribute 11 out of the 26 first-quarter points.

Unity shut down the Jurong scoring in the second quarter for almost four and a half minutes to lead by 12 points (30-18) before Ronald Yip (Jurong #8) scored his team’s first second-quarter points at 5:45 to make it a 10-point game (30-20).

Delvin Goh (Unity #14) then got a crowd reaction when he rejected Cheong Jun Wei (#7) on a layup. Jun Wei himself had gotten the same crowd reaction when he did the same to Alvin Yuen (#5) earlier in the quarter.

It was a low-scoring quarter for Unity with 14 points as they walked off leading 40-26 at the half-time break.

Unity cemented their dominance in the third quarter, outscoring Jurong 23-8, and they set their biggest lead of the game of 31 points in this quarter at 63-32.

There was a moment of humour for the crowd when the ball hit the umpire’s table and reset the scores to 0-0. The Jurong supporters found that particularly funny.

Jurong, to their credit, continued to fight for every ball, but they could not threaten a Unity team that wrapped up a 30-point victory at 84-54.

“We have done quite well to get to the final,” said Tan Kok Wei, captain of the Jurong team. “We tried to catch up and we did our best.”

On the upcoming national championship, Kok Wei added: “Hopefully, we can get into the second round. Unity, North Vista, Anglican High and Dunman are the top four.”

Unity are now unbeaten in 29 games stretching back to the start of 2010. They are unbeaten in 10 zonal games so far this year.

Unity and Jurong will be joined by New Town Secondary and Hua Yi Secondary in the national championship. New Town beat Hua Yi 63-60 to finish third in the West Zone.

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