Story by REDintern Christy. Pictures by REDintern Vanessa.
Republic Polytechnic Sports Complex, Thursday, July 10, 2008 – Although Innova Junior College (IJC) were new to the game and Yishun Junior College (YJC) had one of the top teams last season, IJC issued a strong challenge to YJC and made YJC fight long and hard for their 3-2 victory.
Just seconds into the game, the YJC captain Ding Jun (#8) opened accounts by volleying a powerful shot straight into the back of IJC’s net for a 1-0 lead. YJC Nikhil (#11) widened the gap to 2-0 when he scored another goal at 07:42. With 3 minutes left, a YJC player got fouled and IJC had a chance to score during their power play. However, despite IJC’s perseverance in searching for a first goal, YJC were not letting up on their assaults with even a ball getting crushed due to the intense defending by YJC.
In the second period, it was time for IJC’s comeback. At the 10:27 min mark, IJC Charles (#8) received a ball and scored stunningly from mid-court with no blocking whatsoever from YJC to make it 1-2. This totally caught the YJC goalkeeper Yan Shi (#5) unaware as just seconds ago the ball was actually in YJC’s possession in the opposition half. This goal elicited joy from the IJC team and all team players rushed to congratulate the scorer. The second period was the most aggressive of the game – in fact due to the fierce tackling, an IJC player actually fell out of the court and knocked down a few boards. Even the game had to be stopped to put up the benches. Nevertheless, despite the intense game, both team held their grounds and denied all the chances at goal.
In the third period, IJC changed their strategy, adopting a full-court pressure on YJC to get turnovers to yield chances for an equalizer. Unfortunately for them, it seemed that the strategy had no effect on YJC as they calmly played on and at 04:28, YJC Farhan (#18) fired a potent high ball which eluded the IJC goalkeeper Zakaria(#69) to make it 3-1. Again, it was IJC Charles (#8) who kept his team’s hopes alive by scoring another goal at the 11:59 mark to make it 2-3.
Although IJC continued to put up a tough fight in the last three minutes with even the IJC goalie Zakaria(#69) coming out for an attacker for the remaining few seconds of the match, it was a matter of "too little, too late". Ironically, it was this reason that allowed YJC to score again. The ball, however, went in just a second too late after the whistle and was not counted. Nonetheless, it did not have any impact on the game as YJC had already won 3-2.
One could see great leadership skills by YJC captain Ding Jun (#8) who commanded a strong presence in the field and directed the team to victory. Although YJC was the team with better skills, it was IJC that showed more determination and spirit to win despite being the underdogs. Indeed, it goes to show that it is always too early to give up if the final whistle has not been blown.
Editors note: If you recognise yourself or your team mates in any of the photos, feel free to leave the names behind in the comments section and we will update the captions accordingly. Names of the players mentioned in the article will also be very much appreciated. Thanks!
thanks!
No problem, I would be glad to assist in the names of the YJ players. 🙂 And to IJC goalie, I’m sure the semi finalists will put up a good fight. Go YJ Vanguards and YJ Nimbus! 😀
good luck to IJC for their match tmr. I will be down to watch again. =)
it was really a good match i say.
both teams were really giving their best.
🙂
TO THE SEMI-FINALISTS:
put a good show for us to catch aite 🙂 may the best team wins.
spread the love.
spread the passion for floorball everyone
You guys are in luck! i just called the photographer up and she agreed to send me more photos! =) The league table is up… Can you guys see it? I hope it isn’t too small…
Thank you Floorballer again!
Yep #11 is Nikhil! It’s okay, the boards were really flimsy that day. Especially so when the YJ guy who collided with the IJ player was really skinny. And please, can we have more photos! 😀
Hi weeyong, the photographer did take other photos of the match but it is up to the photographer whether she wants to disclose the photos or not. Now, I only have 2 pictures from her.
Thank you all for providing the names! The last floorballer unnamed: YJC #11. Is it Nikhil?
To Floorballer: OMG! I can’t believe I didn’t catch that… And I actually wrote benches! This is so embarrassing! I guess it must be the result of writing this article at 2am in the morning. I usually won’t write in the names of players who got fouled out, missed penalties, etc as I believe the article should be positive.
The player who got two minutes, number 11 Nikhil.
Yjc goalkeeper, #5 Yan Shi.
Yjc #18, Farhan.
Any by the way, it wasn’t benches that got knocked down. It was boards 🙂
No 79: Halim i think haha
Btw, just wanting to know if there are more photos for the match? thanks!
yjc capt #8, ding jun
Zakaria( #69) and Halim
Thank you xin kai, do you know the IJC’s goalkeeper name?
IJC #8 : Charles
Yeah, we will come back next year for sure 🙂
Congrats YJC for this exciting match !
Names for the IJCians and YJCians will be very much appreciated. =)
To Floorballer:
Wow. I was impressed by IJC. Now I am even more impressed.
picture #2, Xin Kai #14.
ill come back next year to get my win against yjc next year. i hope we get some proper coach and funding next year too.
I think IJC did a very good job.
With no proper funding, no proper place to train and no proper coach ( the coach help them for free), and with only around 2 months of training, IJC has indeed done their best and i am sure they will come back stronger next year.
Congrats to IJC floorball team.