Story by reader Erwin Wong

Singapore Basketball Centre, Wednesday, May 13, 2009 – Hwa Chong Institution and Innova Junior College will square off in the A Division Boys’ Basketball final after winning their respective semi-finals in contrasting fashion.

Hwa Chong despatched Raffles Institution 64-52 by dominating the boards and contesting the latter’s long range threats of Jonathan Cher and Chey Zheng Feng. They led by 18 after 3 quarters and were up by as many as 24 in the final period before RI mounted a late comeback that was too little too late to carry them into the final.

Hwa Chong Institution’s point guard Chiam Hong Yao had sizzled in the pivotal first quarter, scoring 12 of his team’s 18 points to lead 18-6 at the close. He eventually top scored with 25 points.

Try as they might, the Raffles team, also consisting of previous RI combined schools player An Zheng, could not recover after that.

In the other semi-final match, Innova Junior College made 2 late-game free throws to beat Victoria Junior College 48-47 in a close game all throughout. VJC were down 46-43 but made 2 free throws and stole the ball from the immediate inbounds play for a layup to lead by 1.

VJC then committed a fifth team foul at their offensive end of the court after a timeout to send IJC to the line, where they promptly made both. VJC did not manage to score and had to foul again, but this time IJC missed their free throws. VJC inbounded with seconds remaining but could not get a shot off in time, sending IJC to the final and consigning themselves to the 3rd and 4th placing match.

Check back later for detailed match reports and pictures.

View exciting 4th quarter highlights of the RI(JC) vHCI (JC) semi final:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSVq4j6LUzc

View exciting 4th quarter highlights of the IJC v VJC semi final:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bP11Rf_GyXE