Terengganu shock Sports School

21/12/2002

MALAYSIA Sports School were brought down to earth when they lost 5-2 to SMK Padang Midin of Terengganu in the quarterfinals of the Champions Schools at the Pandamaran Hockey Stadium in Klang yesterday.
After an impressive run in the group stages, the under-16 boys found the
going uphill against the matured Terengganu side and never put up much of a fight.
The Terengganu hero yesterday was Mohamed Nazreen who scored a brace in the 10th, 37th, 45th and 56th. The other goal was scored by Mohamed Razali (31st). The Sports School goal scorers were Baljit Singh (49th) and Nabil Fikri (62nd).
In the Penang-Pahang last eight match, SMK Datuk Haji Abdul Kadir fought tooth-and-nail to shut out SMK Seberang Temerloh of Pahang with a sudden-death goal in the 72nd minute.
Penang were a lazy side in the first half and it looked like playing
with only one break since Monday did more damage to them than the fitter Pahang boys. But in the second half, after a fiery pep-talk from their coach, they practically camped in the Pahang semi-circle and were rewarded with late goals.
Pahang, relying heavily on counter-attacks, drew first blood in the 33rd
minute when Mohamed Firdaus deflected home a penalty corner meelee and went into the breather looking very confident and fresh.
Penang limped back into the match in the second half and there were
plenty of near-misses but Pahang defended their one-goal lead with
numbers.
The defensive strategy backfired when L. Pragash scored the equaliser
off a penalty corner in the 57th minute to force sudden-death. And barely
two minutes into extra-time, Pragash shut the door on Pahang with his
second penalty corner goal.
In the other quarter-final, St David High of Malacca beat Negri
Sembilan's SM Datuk Taha 3-2.
Negri had a good grip of the match with a 2-0 lead but handed the
quarter-final ticket to Malacca by making some silly mistakes.
Negri's Mohamed Aini (30th) and Mohamed Zulfadli (37th) could not dent the fighting spirit of Malacca who equalised within a apate of a minute.
Mohamed Faris ignited the fightback with a 40th minute field goal and
right after re-start, Mohamed Amir made the score level.
And in the 48th minute, Malacca were awarded a penalty stroke and Azmir Osman took them into the semifinals.
Results (q-finals) - SMK Datuk Haji Abdul Kadir (Pg) 1 SMK Seberang
Temerloh (Pah) 1 - Penang win 2-1 on sudden-death goal; SMK Padang Midin (Trg) 5 Malaysia Sports Schools 2; St David High (Mal) 3 SM Datuk Taha (NS) 2; SMK Anderson (Pk) 5 Armed Forces (AFATS) 0.
(END)