By Grace Sim/Red Sports
Charine Chong (Nee Soon East WD) about to get possession over the outstretched arm of her Bedok opponent. (Photo 1 © Les Tan/Red Sports)
Kallang Netball Centre, Sunday, September 2, 2012 – Nee Soon East Team 2 beat Bedok CSC 30-25 in a Round of 16 game to progress to the quarter-finals of the Singapore National Games netball tournament.
Nee Soon East will play Yew Tee CSC who beat Tanjong Pagar-Telok Blangah CSC Team A 51-15 in another Round of 16 game.
The Singapore National Games offered a new competition format and as luck would have it, strong contenders Bedok and Nee Soon East were drawn to meet early on in the same half.
From the get go, both teams were neck-and-neck, maintaining their centre pass possession and scoring alternate goals. It wasn’t until seven minutes into the game that Nee Soon capitalized on a turnover to gain a two-goal advantage. They managed another subsequent break to close the first quarter leading 11-7.
The lead gave Nee Soon the confidence to settle well into the second quarter. Despite their small stature, the Nee Soon players, particularly Co-captains Low Yilun and Sylvia Lim, displayed spectacular agility coupled with dynamic play to overcome their lankier Bedok counterparts.
Nee Soon extended their lead to 19-11 by half time.
As the third quarter got underway, the Bedok team was desperate to recover ground and made some high risk strategic changes, including swapping out Goal Attack Athirah Zulkiffle to Wing Defence and Paula Ho to Centre. The move paid off as Bedok closed the gap to five to trail 19-24 going into the final period.
The last quarter proved to be a nail-biting affair as Bedok stepped up the pressure to close in on their opponents. Nee Soon were forced to keep possession of the ball in an effort to eat up the time through repetitive passes.
Both teams were once again back on track, potting their respective center passes. In the dying minutes of the game, Bedok defenders managed to rebound the ball off Nee Soon’s missed attempt at the post and came within a three-goal striking distance.
Unfortunately, their efforts went to waste as they lost possession of their subsequent centre pass and Nee Soon wrapped it up 30-25 winners at full time.
Claiming victory over Bedok CSC was especially rewarding for the Nee Soon team.
Captain Low Yilun divulged: “They (Bedok) are from the same club, they actually train together. But the rest of us, we just stay in the same estate and we are from different clubs, so we don’t usually train together.”
Nee Soon co-captain, Sylvia Lim, knew they were up against an experienced team.
“We are quite equal in strengths for all the thirds, so we are able to bring the ball down as how we expected. We worked around how they play to overcome them,” said Sylvia.
“It’s probably the game against one of the top few teams in the whole tournament so it’s a bit unlucky that we meet them in the second round,” said Eric Lee, the team manager of Nee Soon.
Round of 16 Results
Yew Tee CSC 51 TP-TB CSC (Team A) 15
Bukit Batok East Wild Berries 29 Tampines Pink Dolphins 11
Yio Chu Kang CSC 72 Virtus @ Tampines North CSC 3
Potong Pasir CSC 18 Marsiling Maidens 16
Nee Soon East (Team 1) 53 vs CCK CSC (Team 1) 9
Cashew 37 Moulmein-Kallang Nettyballers 3
Nee Soon East (Team 2) 30 Bedok CSC 25
More photos next page
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