By Kenneth Tan/Red Sports

Republic Polytechnic, Friday, May 7, 2010 – Temasek Junior College (TJC) qualified for the A Division Netball Championship semi-finals after a 50-37 win over newcomers River Valley High (RVH) in their second Group Y game.

TJC started off the second round with a 62-16 win over Pioneer Junior College (PJC) while RVH lost to last year’s runners-up Raffles Institution (RI) 18-40.

Despite this year being their maiden appearance in the A Division netball scene, RVH showed no signs of inexperience to hold TJC after the first and second quarter. However they could not last the pace as they faltered towards the end to hand the victory to TJC.

The match started at a frantic pace with both teams eager to attack and take advantage of each other’s turnovers. As a result, both team traded goalscoring opportunities to end the first quarter on a score of 10-all.

The second quarter was played with the same tempo with both teams fighting hard to win the ball. The score remained locked on 23-all at the end of the quarter.

RVH appeared to show signs of tiredness in the third quarter as they committed a few uncharacteristic turnovers. That resulted in them conceding 13 goals while scoring only six to trail 29-36 in this quarter.

They tried their best to cut the deficit in the final quarter but accurate shooting from TJC’s GA and GS meant they were outscored 8 goals to 14, ending the match as 37-50 losers.

RVH co-captains Ethel Huang and Lee Han Ni shared their feelings after the match.

“It was a tough game as both teams really wanted to win,” Ethel said. “Both teams put in a great deal of effort and it came down to who made the least mistakes during the game.”

“We had to move a lot in this game,” Han Ni added. “As the TJC defenders were very tight in the circle, we were forced to be brave in there in order to score.”

Ethel also felt her team have learnt from the match.

“In this game, it required patience in holding the ball and looking for options,” she said. “This was something to learn which we didn’t get to work on in our previous games.”

In an earlier Group X fixture, RI thrashed PJC 65-8 that see them qualify for the semi-finals alongside TJC.

In the final round of Group Y fixtures scheduled for Monday,10th April, TJC take on fellow qualifiers RI in a clash to determine who finish top of Group Y at 3.30pm while RVH take on PJC in the earlier game at 2pm where only pride is at stake.

Both matches will be played at Republic Polytechnic.

Go to the SCHOOLS FIXTURES & RESULTS page for more information.