Story by REDintern Christy Ong

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Republic Polytechnic Sports Complex, Thursday, July 10, 2008 – National Junior College (NJC) beat Millennia Institute (MI) 5-4 in a comeback thriller in their A Division Boys Floorball Championship match. This match was equally important to both teams as they had to prove their mettle, having not won any of their past matches.

MI started out the game strongly and at 04:41, an assisted pass by MI #10 allowed teammate #15 to smack the ball into goal. The brilliant partnership between MI #10 and #15 created yet another goal in at 13:41 in the same stylish fashion to make it 2-0. With slightly more than one minute left in the first period, a MI player was penalized two minutes. This time round, unlike the first power play opportunity NJC had, NJC managed to capitalize with 54 seconds remaining, with NJC Samuel (#13) hitting a powerful shot straight into the top corner of the net to make it 1-2.

57 seconds into the second period, a neat free-hit awarded by NJC Darius (#28) sliced past the defenders and eluded the MI goalkeeper, to make the score 2-2. MI were not about to be silenced just yet and less than two minutes later, the MI #9 found himself dead center in front of the goal and calmly shot the ball past the NJC defenders and goalkeeper into goal. Down 2-3, NJC pushed forward and at 05:23, they created another opportunity to score and made no mistake to even up the score at 3-3.

Determined to lead the game, NJC started with a bang in the third period. Due to the lapses in the MI defense, the NJC Jiawei (#18) and Sukiat (#22) manage to score at the 05:57 and 11:31 mark respectively, allowing NJC to have a comfortable 5-3 lead. Although MI continued their unrelenting search for an equalizer, their #15 was only able to score once at 12:32, and they finished with a heartbreaking 4-5 loss.

It was a well-fought match for both teams and whereas MI was the stronger team in terms of skills, NJC made up for their shortcomings by putting in extra effort with their hard running to win the game.

Writer’s Note: I would like to apologize for the lack of “live” photos. This was due to unforeseen circumstances on the photographer’s part. Still, I hope you readers will enjoy this match report, albeit only in words. Readers are welcomed to send in photos to spice up this article.

Editors note: Names of the players mentioned in the article will be very much appreciated. Thanks!

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League standings for the A Division Boys Floorball Championship as of Thursday, July 10, 2008. (League Table © Christy/REDintern)