Story and pictures by Leslie Tan
Oor Jia Jian of Cedar Girls’ goes on the offence despite the presence of a Whitley player. (Photo © Leslie Tan/Red Sports)
CCAB, Thursday, June 28, 2007 – Whitley Secondary kept their qualifying hopes alive with a crucial 31-30 win over Cedar Girls’ yesterday afternoon at CCAB.
It was a game that saw Whitley dominate Cedar Girls’ early. Any thoughts that it would be an easy victory for Whitley however soon disappeared as Cedar Girls’ staged a spirited fightback and push the game down to the wire. By the end of the four quarters, both sets of players and supporters were exhausted.
Whitley played an aggressive physical game in the first quarter that Cedar Girls’ found hard to cope with. Unable to play their game, Cedar Girls made errors and turned over the ball often. The Cedar Girls coach was so frustrated that he could be heard yelling, "Why don’t you fight for the ball?!" It was therefore no surprise that Whitley were ahead 13-5 at the end of the first quarter.
In the second quarter, the two fit teams maintained the same frenetic pace of the first. Despite having fluid passing moves, both sides hardly put any points on the board in the first few minutes because of inaccurate shooting. Halfway through the second quarter, Cedar Girls’ began a mini fightback. From 6-15 down, they clawed their way back to 12-15, giving their supporters on the sidelines much to cheer about. Whitley answered with two quick baskets from #10 Lynette Tan and #10 Joanne Teh to stretch their lead to 19-12. Audrey Lee of Cedar Girls’ then replied with a two to make it 14-19.
Then the scoring stopped for the last three minutes of the half. Despite end-to-end action, both teams were unable to translate their attacks into points again because of poor shooting. Whitley ended the first half ahead at 19-14.
Cedar Girls then began their grand fightback in the third quarter that left everyone who was watching breathless. Holding Whitley to just two points in the first three minutes of the third quarter, Cedar Girls’ started piling on the points and took the lead for the first time with 5:51 to go. Forcing a turnover, Cedar Girls’ went on the counter-attack and #5 Goh Wan Jun dropped in a basket to make it 22-21. With a fight on their hands, Whitley fought back basket-for-basket and took back the lead at 23-22. Cedar Girls’ then replied through #13 Ong Jia Min to make it 24-23 but #12 Pauline Ang of Whitley made it 25-24. Cedar Girls’ then spurned three scoring opportunities in the last minute of the third quarter and #15 Chermaine Teo of Whitley made them pay with a basket to give her team a three-point breathing room at 27-24 at the end of the third quarter.
Whatever breathing room Whitley thought they had was soon lost as Cedar Girls’ started the fourth quarter brightly. Whitley made a substitution mistake when #6 Thian An Ni thought she was coming off to be replaced by #10 Joanne Teh. In the confusion, Whitley were one player down and Cedar Girls’ took advantage and snatched back the lead through #10 Melinda Chan who made the score 28-27.
With 4:30 to go in the game, Whitley regained the lead at 29-28 through Chermaine Tan and her teammate Pauline Ang stretched the lead further to 31-28. Cedar Girls’ struggled to score despite doing everything else right, managing only to narrow the deficit to 30-31 through a baseline drive and basket by Goh Wan Jun with 43s to go on the clock.
With everyone on the edge and 15s left on the clock, Ong Jia Min of Cedar Girls’ drew a foul and hopes were raised as she went to the line to shoot two free throws. Unfortunately, she missed both free throws and Whitley retained possession and drew the clock down to send their bench jumping for joy and leave the Cedar Girls’ team in tears.
To qualify for the next round, Whitley must now hope for either Guangyang Zhonghua (see comment below) to beat Cedar Girls’ outright or Cedar Girls’ to beat Guangyang Zhonghua by four points or more in their next game.
Whitley Secondary:
#4 Vicki Lim
#5 Shalene Leow
#6 Thian An Ni
#7 Crystal Tay
#8 Kimberly Valerie Kenworthy
#9 Shermaine Ng
#10 Joanne Teh
#11 Lynette Tan (captain)
#12 Pauline Ang
#13 Ang Shi Na
#14 Dione Ling
#15 Chermaine Teo
Cedar Girls’:
#4 Chua Yi Lei
#5 Goh Wan Jun
#6 Audrey Lee
#7 Toh Wuen Lynn
#8 Serene Yap
#9 Magdalene Tan
#10 Melinda Chan
#11 Joline Lim
#12 Oor Jia Jian
#13 Ong Jia Min
#14 Toh Sherlin
#15 Tan Yenyi
Captain Lynnette Tan (in white) of Whitley goes for a layup while a Cedar Girls’ player blocks. (Photo © Leslie Tan/Red Sports)
#6 Audrey Lee of Cedar Girls’ goes on a layup while Whitley’s Lynnette Tan looks on. (Photo © Leslie Tan/Red Sports)
Pauline Ang of Whitley (in white) drives to the basket while #7 Toh Wuen Lynn of Cedar Girls’ tries to stop her. (Photo © Leslie Tan/Red Sports)
Editor’s note: If you recognise yourself or your teammates, please let us know your names. We’ll update the captions. Thanks. More action shots in the Picture Gallery.
the results is out on the web, so i think WSS din protest like they say
if u already have some ideas or some presumptions in mind. Trust also not yr eyes. especially those coming to catch them cheat, and every actions is a cheating act. cos we onli see what we wanna see
i was there to witness both ZhongHua and Cedar, Whitely and Cedar, ZhongHua and Whitely matches. hence, i would be the most accurate person to comment on this.
the first game played was ZH and WSS. it was a tough match and WSS lead in the first part of the game. however, ZH persisted and continued fighting on. WSS and ZH match was fierce and tough with both sides wanting to succeed. in the end, ZH won by 1 mark with their strong mentality.
next was the cedar and WSS match. it was again a tough match. cedar appeared to be weak as many fell and the referee kept on blowing the whistle. however, they managed to fight back, leading by a little. in the end, WSS perservered and won by two.
astly was the ZH and cedar match. it was a much less aggressive match but still as exciting. cedar was leading by a lot in the first three quaters. however, they lacked in the last quaters when they could not hold out any longer. i believe if they were given more time, ZH would have won. both schools also displayed sportsmanship as they thanked each other at the end of the matches admist the cheer of the crowd.
for the ZH and cedar match, i did not see the cedar players pass the ball to the ZH players. it was probably just a mispass. but i could see that the cedar players lacked stamina and were panting away at the last quater. cedar players should work more on their stamina and perservere to the end. the coach probably changed the players at the last quater because they were tired and maybe because he was confident that the other group of players are also able to stop the strong ZH team.
therefore, i think everybody should stop making assumptions of this match and witness it before making your own theory. it is unfair to all the players in WSS, ZH and cedar.
“Trust nothing but your own eyes”- Alexander Martin Clooney.
from what i heard,zhonghua ‘kicked’ cedar out of last year’s c’division.causing cedar not being able to get into the nationals.if that’s the case,i bet cedar would want to kick zhonghua out of this year’s c’division too,instead of helping them get in right?since this is the case,why would the cedar players pass the ball to the zhonghua players?
i agree with passerrrrbyyy. it’s so obvious. why would any person pass an open ball to their oponnent. hellos, you know what is action? act also must act all the way!
which silly person will PURPOSELY PASS THE BALL TO THE OPPNENT?
i think you shouldnt just make assumptions, cause its like not all the main players were replaced out. there were still two inside, the coach wanna replace is his own problem there is nothing to do with giving zhonghua chance. and do you think cedar will risk in letting zhonghua score, and like cedar still continue to layup as per normal till the very end! so its not fair to just accuse them just like that.
but i was seeing the WSS match vs ZH too, the coach didn’t sub any player except for 1 but she looks kinda out of strength. and in the end she wnent in again. how can WSS and ZH fix the game when it was their first match. no link. and after WSS lost to ZH, they cried their heart out. how can that be a fix. and even if they fix it, they should fix so that they can get in, am i right or right?! why in the world will someone fix a game to loose. no link. no sense! not at all. hmms,
woah.i think it’s kind of ridiculous.i was watching the zhonghua and cedar game too.i don’t think there’s anything wrong if the coach wants to replace the main 5.as long as the team wins in the end,it doesn’t matter who the coach puts in to play.as the time decreases,both teams will obviously panic.mispasses and losing ball control are all common.if cedar purposely passed the ball to zhonghua,they wouldn’t have even attempted to do a fastbreak or finish the layup at the last few minutes.it’s still afterall a c’girls game.nothing can be predicted.zhonghua has strong mental strength if they can catch up from losing 22-6 against whitley,and win by 2points in the end,why can’t they do the same for the cedar match?zhonghua were losing by 4 points.it was pure luck that they scored in the last underbasket in the last few seconds for them to only lose by 2 and be able to qualify for top4.
ha ha it is really no point in making assumption here. if i dun rem wrongly, WSS was leading ZHSS by 18 at one stage and at the end lost by 2. Is it match fixing too? players sometimes lost conc, sometimes coach make a bad replacement, sometimes players foul out. C gers game is very unpredictable. and anything can happen. BUT match fixing is very shameful n if it is real, i hope WSS will put up a official complain to henderson sec sch. http://southzonebasketball.multiply.com/ can get the contact of the teachers. WSS can also write in to complain as well, if they really have concrete proof.
I kind of agree with lalalalalala , its quite obvious near the end of the game between both teams. i was standing at the side whereby zh scores in the 4th quater and i saw one or two of the cedar players passing the ball to zh players to score w/o people defending them. well , i am sure those were not mispass but cedar players purposely passed the ball to zh players ,moreover , cedar players defended them by just standing there and not blocking at all. zh lost 2 marks to cedar at the very last few seconds. it was quite unbelievable as i thought cedar would win more than what i’ve expected. cedar was leading with over 10 marks and when the game is almost ending ,cedar’s coach did called for a time out and changed the main five players out. why dont they win more with their strength but they decided to win just 2 marks ? what’s with the coach of both zh and cedar’s thinking ?
i think that zhong hua and cedar controlled the game. they were leading by 10 points and in the end the allow zhong hua to catch up. and cedar players purposely threw the ball to zhong hua players and the scored. and cedar was wining by 10 points, it was about 3 mins more back then. but the coach called for a time out. he could have just leave them and allewed them to drag time. but he called for time out. hmmmm,
not so latest news. cedar beat zhss by 2. so if everything goes well, den cedar top the gp n zhss second. so physical game or not is not an issue anymore.
anyway from the few games that i watched, I think this year zone champion is RGS. No matter what style u play against them. That I think is a true champion. Purely on strategry and technique
why do u ask? u may ask around for the recorded match, i saw some ppl recording it. and u will know why i say that. i shall restrain myself to comment cos i dun wanna be forced into commenting on who make that happened.
hey there, why do you think whitley played a physical game?
cedar did not play well.they were off standard.i agree that the physical contacts were unnecessary.whitley obviously were out to win no matter what they do..
Hi yo, thanks for the correction regarding who Cedar will play next. My mistake. You are probably right.
Les
thanks les for the report.i was there too to view this game.i was rather disappointed that the 1st quarter was more like rugby den basketball.The physical contacts were more often than not unnecessary.I must agree that it is part of the strategy but a win like that spoilt the game. I was expecting a more fluid n exciting game with a higher score rather than the pulling n pushing. But anyway it was still an exciting game. Hope that both group of player can play better in their next game.
By the way, i think cedar will play zhonghua next. if they win by 1 or 2 points cedar n zhonghua progress.if zhonghua win whitely n zhonghua progress.if cedar win by more den 2 den whitely n cedar progress. Correct me if i got it wrong.