Presbyterian in shock defeat to Xinmin

VOLLEYBALL

National Junior U-13 Girls Volleyball Championships 2007, Round 2
Xinmin Secondary vs Presbyterian High
Tuesday, 27th November 2007 at Hougang Sports Hall

Pictures and story by Red Sports volunteer Lai Jun Wei

Xinmin Secondary (XMS) beat Presbyterian High (PHS) 25-9, 25-9 in Round 2 of the National Junior U-13 Volleyball Championships held at Hougang Sports Hall on Tuesday. After watching the U-16 Presbyterian Girls win the championship, many were expecting their juniors to give Xinmin a hard fight.

The game started with XMS much in control. XMS’s serves proved to be quite difficult for the PHS girls to receive. Shots after shots bounced off the PHS’s players hands, or either ended up in empty spaces. XMS held a pretty good lead over PHS when the latter’s coach called for a time out. There was still some action to see as the teams managed to get off a few spikes. However, the set ended quickly with XMS taking the set 25-9.

The second set saw a similar situation. XMS dominated much of the game with their powerful serves. However, the PHS’s players put their best effort in to break the XMS’s serves. The players dived onto the floor and sprinted to rescue stray balls. However, XMS still managed to grab several points. The PHS’s girls did not show any sign of letting up despite trailing by a huge scoreline. They rallied each other with their coach at the sidelines giving constant advice. But XMS proved to be the better of the two when they took the second set in as quick a time as the first set.

Final score: 2-0 (25-9, 25-9)

More pictures in the gallery.

Note from Jun Wei: With the A’ levels finally concluded, I decided to head down to Hougang Sports Hall to shoot some U-13 volleyball action. Armed with better equipment (kindly loaned to me by Uncle Les), I managed to shoot much better photos than as compared to those in my other postings. Overwhelmed with the superb quality of the pictures produced by the superb lens, I started shooting individual shots of the players. So please pardon me if there isn’t much “group action”. I was kind of trying to shoot more of the individual shots. So do view the picture gallery (it’s worth it), and you might even find a nice solo picture of yourself (if you’re a player) in action, or even a picture of that girl from that team whom you were too shy to approach. 😉

Editor's note: If you recognise yourself or your teammates, or if we've got the names wrong, let us know and we'll update the captions. If you have the latest details of the Volleyball Championship, please update readers in the "comments" section. Thanks.