Victorian skipper Sheryl and Hwa Chong’s Sheng Yu crowned MVPs of the season

Story by Lee Hwee Cheng

Toa Payoh Sports Hall, Friday, May 25, 2007 – Beaming from ear to ear, Sheryl Lim, captain of the Victoria Junior College’s Girls Basketball team and proud owner of jersey #11, was looking part exhausted, part exuberant all at the same time as her teammates crowded around, hugging onto their gold medals and congratulating their captain as she clutched that big white envelope enclosing her special prize of a hundred-dollar Converse gift voucher in her hands.

The 18-year-old final year student was almost at a loss for all words.  After all, she must have needed some time to recover from both exhaustion and her overwhelming double joy.  Not only had she helmed her team to the championship that had eluded the Victorians for years just minutes ago, she was also awarded the Most Valuable Player (MVP) in the girls’ final this year.

"We lost to Raffles Junior College in the same final last year, so today, we came back to the final, really wanting to beat them this year.  Though we had lost some focus amongst the team today during the first half as Raffles started all the scoring, I think we picked ourselves up and we played our best game today."

When asked whom in her team she thought, in her own eyes, should have been more deserving of the Converse gift voucher, she answered almost immediately, "Xin Ying.  My teammate #6."

Looming over almost everyone else on the court at 1.88m, yet looking somewhat like an unassuming scrawny little boy with intense looks of determination as he grabs his rebound and strides around his double-teaming defenders to pip the ball into the basket with a finger-roll (and this boy just makes the whole move look oh-so-easy), 17-year-old Lim Sheng Yu of Hwa Chong Institution flushed with a shy demeanour as he loomed over the 1.67m-tall writer who had pulled him aside for an interview.

His face seemed to ask, "Why me – alone?" complete with a puzzlement bordering on uneasiness.  Well, any newly-crowned MVP of a final definitely does deserve his five minutes of solo fame with the media, doesn’t he?

Usually bearing no emotion on court as he goes about his game with only the basket in his eyes, the boy could not hide his excitement with his team’s trophy and his MVP title.  The writer had one query:  You boys defended the championship title, you must have held the trophy last year too, why so excited?  Then she found out, it was his first  gold medal –  this boy is only a first-year student in Hwa Chong.

And get this:  this has been only his second year playing in a school tournament.  Believe or not, the talent is a late bloomer – discovered only in his Secondary Four year in Bukit Panjang Government High.

Not one to bask in fame alone, he credited his seniors for giving him good guidance during trainings, and he praised his team’s no-nonsense brand of efficient trainings, "We have really good discipline during trainings – absolutely no fooling around!"

Feeling totally ‘paisei‘ (Hokkien slang for "embarrassed") about his MVP title, he blurted, "I am only in Year One, of course I feel ‘paisei‘!  I think the award should have gone to my seniors Yeow Lin (#7) and Yong Kang (captain #15) instead."

Congratulations to the champions, and to the MVPs.