Story and photos by Marvin Lowe.
Fajar Secondary School, Thursday, 31st July, 2008 – Raffles Girls’ School beat Nanyang Girls’ High School 11-6 to capture the C Division Girls Softball Championship title.
Both teams met previously in the group stage and RGS had emerged victorious. The Nanyang girls were hoping to the turn the tide and exact revenge for their previous defeat but the strength of the RGS team prevailed.
Things did not go according to plan for Nanyang Girls’ right from the start. The RGS lead off batter, Christine, hit a home run at the start of the first inning. The ball sailed beyond the outfielders and she easily rounded all the bases for the home run. Interestingly, this was their only hit of the game.
The RGS team morale was boosted by the sight of the booming home run and they went on to score another three more runs in the inning through various fielding errors. In contrast, Nanyang managed only one run in their first inning.
RGS continued to pull further ahead. They scored four more runs in the second inning and limited Nanyang to one more run as well. This gave them a healthy 8-2 lead going into the 3rd inning. They added three more runs in the 3rd inning to pull ahead to 11-2 and it seemed impossible for Nanyang to catch up.
However, Nanyang showed great determination to fight back and scored three runs before having their inning cut short by the excellent pitching of the RGS pitcher.
In some sense, the last two innings became a battle of the pitchers. Both opposing pitchers had very different styles as well. Loh Xueyi from Nanyang has a very unique whipping action which allows her to throw her pitches in a rather fiery manner. On the other hand, Natalie from Raffles is a southpaw and has a fluid motion which allows her to throw with pinpoint accuracy into the strike zone.
The beginning of the fourth inning saw Xueyi strike out two batters and retiring all three RGS batters in rapid succession, holding the Raffles team scoreless. This was the perfect chance for Nanyang to fight back. Having replaced the injured Jean, substitute Lauren scored one of the most bizarre runs. She bulldozed a fielder at second base before sheepishly running home to score the only run for the inning. The other Nanyang batters were retired without much fuss. This was a great opportunity wasted.
In the very last inning, Xueyi managed to shut out the Raffles batters once again. However, Natalie of RGS was more than up to the task as well. She retired all the Nanyang batters without allowing a single run, leaving the last batter swinging for air as she struck her out.
At the end of the day, RGS emerged victorious because they took their opportunities well. On the other hand, Nanyang were left to rue their missed chances. Nanyang had a superior hit count with four hits compared to one for RGS but they made seven errors to allow RGS to walk away with the title.
After the match, RGS catcher and captain, Jocelyn shared her thoughts about their victory. “I am very proud of my team and the way we have progressed since the zonals. We lost to Peicai during the zonals, but since then, we have learnt from our mistakes. They key was to minimize errors in the field. We have played Nanyang before and we knew we needed to be strong in the field to stop them from scoring.”
When asked about the key turning points in the match, she immediately pointed to the very first home run by Christine. “That home run really boosted our morale! Also, there were great catches by Nico, Alanna and Wee Boon. Wee Boon hurt herself making that catch and that made us even more determined to win the game.” She ended the interview by dedicating the victory to the teachers in charge and and their coach, Mr Nelson Lim.
Editor’s note: If you recognise yourself or your teammates in any of the photos, please feel free to leave the names behind in the comments section and we will update the captions accordingly.
aiyo how come so biased towards rgs?
NYGH FTW
jiayou this year we gonna own rgs
the one who got sat on is li yihong
i agree with passerby man.
its super biased.
and oh man.
the “last batter swung at the air” or sth like that was me GAH
I THINK ITS VERY BIASED TOWARDS RGS, personally.
I mean like, both teams did well definityly,
But nanyang should also get more praise and not just
“LAUREN SAT ON THE RGS PLAYER”
“JEAN STEPS ON HER TEAM MATE”
HAHAHAHHA OMG OMG OMG(!!!)
Yeah xue yi’s name is spelled wrongly.
its LOWWWWW xue yi(:
jean’s wince is very wincey! hahaha why is she always getting injured ):
and minghui ahhahaha unglamm yet again:D
GO NANYANGGG:D NYSBBB<3
woah, everything’s all so exaggerated.
everyone’s all biased towards the winning team.
XUE YI <3
Lauren didn’t just sit on that RG player, she fell flat on her. (:
i agree with bread.
ny’s gonna get it back ;D
haha yes there’s always next year ny(:
oh the spelling of Xue Yi’s name is wrong, it’s supposed to be Low Xue Yi, thanks(:
YAY (: RG kicks ass! RGSOFTBALL FTW (: (: (:
heyy. good game to both teams. i think both teams have put in the effort to deserve the gold. but juz coz rgs hasnt been winning doesnt mean they cant win nanyang this time. even tho nanyang had 4 gd hits and rgs only 1, it juz goes to show that rgs had what it took out there on the field by making less errors so good job rg!but it was also unfortunate that there were so many errors by nanyang.
rgs won the game by themselves and not coz nanyang gave the game to them by making errors.
YAY (: RG kicks ass!! (: RGSOFTBALL FTW!! (: (: (:
both teams deserved it. nanyang’s batting was good. rg fielding was not bad either. yes, pity for nanyang all the errors. but nonetheless, the gold out goes to both for their efforts.
Great game! Nice work RGS! (:
lol didn’t know RG only 1 hit
hey(:
is there a picture of the RG pitcher pitching?
would love to see it thanks!
No worries ny (: Next year beat them. Jia you!
hi. in the last paragraph there is a spelling error. the batter’s name is Nico. thanks (:
Brilliant hits by Nanyang- the hit count of 4 hits to 1 hit by RGS was impressive, but it was quite a pity there were the errors that made Nanyang lose their well-deserved championship title.
Good pitching to both the RG and NY pitchers.
Hahaaa, that was funny.
It’s okay NYSB, try again next year 🙂
Ny, ftw!