AYG Bowling: Singapore girls’ team in third place after first 3 games

Story by Chin Chi Hua/Red Sports. Photos by Leslie Tan/Red Sports.

Orchid Country Club, Friday, July 3, 2009 – The Singapore girls team of Darshini Krishna, Anthea Soh, Ilma Nur Jannah Fadzal and New Hui Fen currently stand in third position after 3 games in the Asian Youth Games bowling team event. Singapore will look to better their performance in the next three games tomorrow as they trail leaders Korea by 133 pinfalls.

Darshini was on a roll in the first game, filling the frames with strikes and spares. Six continuous strikes made her the top scorer for the first game with a 257, as Korea’s Yoo Ka-Hee trailed with 220 pinfalls.

Singapore had a narrow 815-812 lead after the first set, with Japan close behind. Korea was not far off at 795 pinfalls.

Unfortunately, Singapore’s second game bore resemblance to the boys’ team’s second. Their male counterparts had a poor second set after leading the first, and the girls were mirroring this pattern as they appeared to have lost their focus. Even double gold medallist Hui Fen was unable to perform to her usual standards as she only managed to improve her scores at the end.

Team Singapore’s eventual second set score of 727 made them drop three places to fourth, behind Korea, Japan and Indonesia. Korea and Japan maintained their consistent standards while Indonesia leapfrogged ahead of Singapore after the second game, with a 5-pinfall advantage.

“I think the team has been doing really well although it has been very competitive so far.” said Kelvin Lim Wei Zheng, the captain of the Singapore Sports School boys’ bowling team. He also cited Japan and Philippines as Singapore’s main competitors.

The girls improved in the third set but it was not good enough to close the gap on the other teams. Their score of 762 pinfalls brought them back up above Indonesia, into third position.

After 3 games, Korea leads with 2437 pinfalls, followed by Japan (2425), Singapore (2304) and Indonesia (2275).

The girls team event continues tomorrow at 9am, and the girls will be up against the other 8 teams to compete for the podium spots.