Story by Marvin Lowe

A division hockey boys final VJ vs ACJC

RI score their third goal of the game. (Photo 1 © Vanessa Lim/Red Sports)

Sengkang, Thursday, May 19, 2011 — Raffles Institution reclaimed the A Division Boys Hockey title after defeating Victoria Junior College 3-0. Timothy Goh of RI scored a hattrick to lead the way for his team.

RI lost the A Division championship to SAJC last year, which broke a seven-year streak of titles.

In the girls’ A Division hockey final, VJC beat Anglo-Chinese Junior College 2-1.

Raffles dominated the game from start to finish and VJC did their best to keep the Raffles attack at bay with tight marking and brave tackles. However, they were only able to hold on till the 20th minute. A mistimed challenge saw a Victorian defender sent to the sin bin with a yellow card. From the resulting short corner, Timothy deftly deflected the flick past the hapless VJC keeper for a 1-0 lead.

Raffles kept up the pressure but could only enter the break with the solitary goal.

Seven minutes into the second half, Raffles were rewarded with another short corner. The Raffles short corner team executed their set play to perfection. Jaswal Singh flicked the ball strongly to Timothy who deflected the ball past the keeper for a 2-0 lead.

Raffles kept up their pressure and did not relent in their attack, pressing the VJC defense into giving away the ball. Timothy intercepted a misplaced pass and coolly dribbled his way into the penalty area. With a skillful shimmy, he caused the VJC goalkeeper to commit himself to dive and dribbled past him to calmly slot into the open goal.

“It was a bitter pill to swallow, that we were the team to lose the title after our seniors had defended it for 7 years. That loss last year, served as our main motivation this year. We wanted to win the title back and we wanted to do it in a convincing manner,” said RI captain Ishwarpal Singh.

Together with his co-captain, they set a lofty target for their team that they would not concede a single goal throughout the tournament. Not only did they manage to achieve this target, the team scored a whopping 46 goals as well.

Go to next page for more photos