Story and pictures by REDintern Nyan Fu Keong.
Kallang Netball Centre, Monday, June 23, 2008 – LLAB 10 Spades beat Extremes 43-28 in a Division 1 Netball League game to register their first win of the season. Both teams, having lost their first three games in the season, played an intense game, especially in the 1st and 2nd quarters. The swift, tactical play of the Spades was the recipe for their eventual victory.
Extremes scored the first in the game and it took Spades five minutes before they could reply with their first goal through their GS Si Hui. The 1st quarter saw the Extremes making bad calls and losing possession, causing their coach much frustration. By the end of the quarter, they were down by two at 8-10.
The 2nd quarter saw Spades’ Hui Xian making her presence felt. Despite her small build, she made space for herself so that her teammates could find her with passes. The Spades defence played solidly too, holding off the Extremes offensive. As the game intensity rose with both sides unable to gain a significant lead, the coaches anxiety rose too as they yelled instructions to teammates making errors. Extremes scored four points before the end of the 2nd quarter but Spades still led 21-16.
Spades started the 3rd quarter strongly, with Si Hui scoring three consecutive points within two minutes of the restart. The stronger Spades performance in the quarter saw them leading by nine at 30-21 by the end of the third.
A painful collision between the Spades GK and Extremes GA marked the start of the 4th quarter, with both sprawled on the floor after the accidental clash. Fortunately, they were not seriously injured. With a nine-point gap to make up, Extremes started playing long, risky passes across court while Spades took the opposite tack and took their time passing the ball. To their credit, the Extremes kept their morale up and did not flag in effort but they could not do enough to overhaul the Spades lead, eventually going down 28-43.
With this win, LLAB10 Spades improve their record to 1-win-3-losses while Extremes are 0-4 for the season. Team Nike Air lead the Division 1 table with a perfect 6-0 record.
N.B. The competition is also known as the “Energizer Netball League”.
Go deborah & yini!
GOOOOO DEBORAH & YINI!
LLABTEN COMGRAT FOR FIRST WIN!!
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