Dunman in heartbreaking loss to Fairfield

VOLLEYBALL

National Junior U-13 Girls Volleyball Championships 2007, Round 2
Fairfield Methodist vs Dunman Secondary
Tuesday, 27th November 2007 at Hougang Sports Hall

Pictures and story by Red Sports volunteer Lai Jun Wei

Dunman Secondary (DMS) met Fairfield Methodist (FMSS) in Round 2 of the recently concluded U-13 Volleyball Championships.

DMS proved a strong force to be reckoned with after their convicting wins in their previous matches. Jermaine (#16, FMSS) started the game with a few strong serves. Winning several points for her team, FMSS quickly took an early lead. DMS tried their very best to receive their opponents’ serve and organise an attack. Spikes by the DMS centre spikers Jia En (#2) and Claira (#11) earned several points for their team. However, the FMSS spikers managed to evade the DMS blocks many times to score. This eventually led FMSS to take the first set 25-21.

DMS started the second set gearing to fight back. After receiving some last minute coaching, the DMS players started showing their might as their strong spikes managed to earn quite a few points. However, FMSS were not to be beaten easily as they managed to make their presence felt with powerful serves. Time-outs called by the DMS coach seeked to break the FMSS service, as well as to provide crucial advice to the players.

Seeing the DMS players put in all their might to rescue stray balls allowed DMS to close the score gap. They managed to bring the game to a deuce at 24-24. DMS had a clear advantage as they had Huijie (DMS, #7) on service. However, her ball was received and slammed back into the DMS court to level FMSS up. A second deuce was held at 25-25, but FMSS managed to organise a formidable attack to seal the set 27-25.

Undeniably the girls from both team put in their best in this game. The fighting spirit of the DMS girls definitely proves commendable. Though they might have lost the game, the efforts put in make them winners in the end.

Final score: 2-0 (25-21, 27-25)

More pictures in the gallery.

Note from Jun Wei: Armed with better equipment (kindly loaned to me by Uncle Les), I managed to shoot much better photos than as compared to those in my other postings. Overwhelmed with the superb quality of the pictures produced by the superb lens, I started shooting individual shots of the players. So please pardon me if there isn't much "group action". I was kind of trying to shoot more of the individual shots. This match brought in a “bumper” amount of photos. As my camera was running out of battery, I decided to maximise whatever remaining power I had to shoot solo shots. So do view the picture gallery (it's worth it), and you might even find a nice solo picture of yourself in action (if you’re a player), or even a picture of that girl from that team whom you were too shy to approach.

Editor's note: If you recognise yourself or your teammates, or if we've got the names wrong, let us know and we'll update the captions. If you have the latest details of the Volleyball Championship, please update readers in the "comments" section. Thanks.