South Zone C Div Bball: Good defence helps RI beat Outram 67–27

Story by Zachary Foo/Red Sports. Photos by Louisa Goh/Red Sports.

Jonathan Low (RI #15) attempts to shoot against OSS. (Photo 1 © Louisa Goh/Red Sports)

PESEB, Monday, June 30, 2014 — Raffles Institution (RI) broke away in the final quarter to beat Outram Secondary (OSS) 67–27 in the first round of the South Zone C Division Basketball Championship. Vincent (OSS #11) led all scorers with 20 points, while Liu Kuo (RI #11) had 11 points to lead his team to victory.

The win puts RI joint-top of Group C with a 1–0 win–loss record, along with Guangyang Secondary.

RI jumped out of the gates early on, as their full court press helped set up some easy buckets for them. Outram seemed out of sorts at the start, as they were passing the ball around sloppily. Only Vincent (OSS #11) seemed to find some measure of success scoring for his team. He managed to score five points in the quarter to keep his team in the game.

Outram settled into the game in the second quarter and that allowed them to match RI bucket for bucket. Vincent (OSS #11) scored all nine points for his team in the quarter, mostly on tough contested layups. RI, on the other hand, had scoring contributions from five different players in the quarter.

The offence dried up for Outram in the third quarter, as they went for four minutes without a bucket. RI continued their relentless pressure on defence, forcing multiple Outram turnovers. This allowed RI to slowly extend the lead, while at the same time wearing down the Outram players.

The trio of Bryan Teo (#7), Jia Hao (#8) and Colin Tung (#14) combined well to spark RI’s offence in the final quarter. They were responsible for RI’s sudden 30-point outburst in the frame, which saw them finish with an eventual 40-point (67–27) margin of victory.

RI will next face National Junior College on Wednesday, July 2 at 3:50pm at PESEB.

RI captain, Brendon Ngiam (#10), said, “Today’s game was not bad. We started off slow and had quite a lot of turnovers. However, we managed to cut them down and made a lot of good plays. We have to work on our full court press in our future games for us to do well.

RI top scorer, Liu Kuo (#11), said, “We were able to get into a rhythm and we cut into the lanes aggressively. However, we need to reduce our turnovers and pressure every ball on defence. Once we deny them the shot, we have a better chance of winning.”

Scoring by Quarter
Raffles Institution vs Outram Secondary
1st Quarter: 17–7
2nd Quarter: 10–9 (27–16)
3rd Quarter: 10–7 (37–23)
4th Quarter: 30–4 (67–27)

Top Scorers
RI
Liu Kuo (#11) – 11 points

OSS
Vincent (#11) – 20 points

RI Roster
Reuben Yang (#4), Zi Heng (#5), Adam Harith (#6), Bryan Teo (#7), Jia Hao (#8), Liu Jia Wei (#9), Brendon Ngiam (#10), Liu Kuo (#11), Jethro Kwong (#12), Kevin Jung (#13), Colin Tung (#14), Jonathan Low (#15)

OSS Roster
Samuel Koh (#6), Jevan Low (#7), Lee Wen Jie (#8), Tan Jian Xin (#9), Jaryl Gui (#10), Vincent (#11), Ng Zhao Sheng (#12), James Timotious (#13)

More photos next page