Tuesday, May 12, 2009
CCAB, Tuesday, 12 May 2009, 3.45pm
Hwachong volleyball won in straight sets against fellow title challengers VJC 25 - 18, 25 - 20. With this win, Hwachong is now assured of a semi -final spot. After a nervy start, Hwachong gradually found the rhythm of the game and pulled away from VJC. All five spikers (Galvin, lennis, Melvin, Samuel and Zijie) found themselves in good form and were all on target in an encounter which saw hwachong rarely threatened.
First set
For the first set, Kian keong started as the setter, Lennis and Galvin as our quickers, Samuel and melvin as our open, Zijie as our sub-setter and Wincoln our libero. Hwachong started brightly as they took the lead following a melvin spike. However this lead was brief as an error by galvin gifted Vjc a point. This seemed to unsettle the team greatly as struggled to impose their authority upon the court.
Galvin, Lennis and Melvin made crucial spikes to ensure that VJC remained in sight at 5-7. Meanwhile Skipper Samuel drew upon his wealth of experience to calm the team down with some composed defending and words of encouragement. The tide turned when Melvin fired in an ace jump serve that left VJC with no chance.
From then on, Hwachong started to dictate the tempo of the game as they pulled away. Samuel was once again at the heart of the attacking play as he touched out the opponent and spiked left on seperate occasions to bring the score to 13-9. Eager to build upon his impressive displays of late, Zijie chipped in with a spike to the right. As our attack flowed freely, we began to tighten our defence. Our blocking was faultless as we managed to nullify VJC's quick attacks, Notable occasions would include a combined effort by Samuel and Galvin with the score at 15-9 and a solo effort by galvin at 17-9. Libero Wincoln was at his usual best, dealing with everything thats left with surgical precision.
With the score at 20-12, VJC refused to give up and started their resurgence, their spikes coupled with several errors on our own enabled them to stage of brief come back which saw them close down on our lead at 20-16.
Samuel eventually managed to stop the rot with a precise spike to the left. Hwachong never looked back from then. A deft set by Kian keong enabled Melvin to smash home a spike to bring us to 23-17. This was followed by a a tandem between lennis and melvin as they combined beautifully to bring us one point closer to victory. Melvin finally wrapped up the win with a block.
Second setThe second set begun in similar fashion as the score was extremely tight initially. At 1-2, 3 consecutive blocks by zijie failed to win us a point as we succumbed to our own error. Galvin quickly won back a precious point for us in typical thunderous fashion which drew applause from the crowd. Zijie made sure he won the point this time round as he had a fine block which drew us level with Vjc at 4-4.
Hwachong then started to pull away. A tandem by Lennis and Melvin successfully fooled the vjc blockers. With no blockers at hand to stop him, melvin tuck the chance away with glee to make it 11-7. Melvin then proceeded to win 3 consecutive points for hwachong with his spikes and touch outs. With the score up at 15-12, a moment of brilliance saw galvin tricking the vjc blockers into jumping before he rose to slam the spike down.
Samuel preserved his good blocking form in the first set to come up with a solo block to bring out score up to 16-13. A sweet spike by zijie and a quick attack by lennis brought us to 3 points within victory. The game finally ended with a spike down left by samuel following an excellent set by Kian keong.
With this win, Hwachong will now face Ajc in the semi finals this thursday. We also have a match on Wednesday against JJC at 1.30pm CCAB. Go hwachong vball.
life can be a burden, but dun ever give up