Story by REDintern Zachary Foo. Photos by Leslie Tan/Red Sports
Amber Voo (RGS #6) lays up for two against Bukit Merah. (Photo 1 © Les Tan/Red Sports)
PESEB, Evans Road, Wednesday, July 31, 2013 – Round 1 of the South Zone C Division Girls Basketball Championship reached an exciting conclusion today, as a few teams faced matches that determined their safe passage into the zonal semi-finals. Singapore Chinese Girls’ School will face off against Raffles Girls’ School in the first semi-final, while CHIJ Secondary (Toa Payoh) will match up against Zhonghua Secondary in the other. We recap the group standings and also some of the games the Red Crew were able to witness.
Group A
Semi-Finalists – Singapore Chinese Girls’ School (SCGS) (1st), Zhonghua Secondary (2nd)
Defending zonal champions SCGS comfortably topped Group A, scoring an average of 56.25 points per game. They romped to comfortable double-digit margins of victory in each of their four group games. Zhonghua Secondary qualified in second place by the skin of their teeth. They faced off against Mayflower Secondary in a high-stakes final match where the winner would go on to the semi-finals. Zhonghua allowed Mayflower to score the tying basket with eight seconds left in the fourth quarter to send the game into overtime. However, they were able to maintain their composure in the extra period to seal their place in the top four of the zone.
Group B
Semi-Finalists – CHIJ Secondary (Toa Payoh) (1st), Raffles Girls’ School (2nd)
Bukit Merah Secondary 9 Raffles Girls’ School 67 (July 31)
In this matchup, Raffles Girls’ School (RGS) dominated from start to end, scoring baskets with impunity against Bukit Merah. Raffles’ strong full court man-to-man created a lot of turnovers for them, leading to long stretches where Bukit Merah could not even get out of their own half. This led to Bukit Merah being shut out of the second quarter, as they could not capitalise on any opportunity to make a basket.
Furthermore, Raffles showed that they were of a different ilk, exhibiting good spacing and ball movement on quite a few occasions. This will serve them well in their future matches. In the end, Raffles trotted out 67–9 winners and were rewarded with a ticket to the semi-finals, as well as a place in the Nationals.
Captain Amber Voo (#6) was pleasantly surprised with her team’s performance in Round Two. “I am very happy that we are able to make it to the top four! It was unexpected that we qualified this year but I felt we have played well so far! The team did well and fought hard. We went through stretches where we missed quite a few baskets but we managed to follow through. We’ll be looking out for CHIJ (Toa Payoh) and SCGS in the semi-finals, as they have been the powerhouses all this time.”
CHIJ Secondary (Toa Payoh) secured their place in the top four with a dominating performance to win their group. They only faced mild resistance in the form of group runners-up RGS, who held them to a 14-point win.
2013 South Zone C Division Girls’ Basketball Championship – fixtures and results
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