TUNKU BESAR Secondary School (TBSS) of Negri Sembilan came back from a goal down, to beat Seberang Temerloh of Pahang 2-1 in Group A of the Champion Schools at the Kuala Lumpur HA Stadium yesterday.
And TBSS will be out to seal their semi-finals ticket when they square off against Mutiara Impian of Penang today. But if they falter, they will have to beat defending champions Hamzah Machang of Kelantan on Wednesday.
The match was evently matched into the breather, but Seberang Temerloh took the lead off an Ikhwan Manshor penalty corner in the 58th minute, only to see TBSS equalise three minutes later off a field attempt by Ikhwan Ishak.
The match was heading towards a draw, but a 66th minute field goal by Shahir Arif handed TBSS three valuable points.
"We have two tough matches back-to back after this, and need to keep our momentum to play in the semi-finals. Penang and Kelantan are both formidable opponents, and we need to play much better than the previous two matches to beat them," said TBSS coach M. Vivekananda.
In another Group A match, Hamzah Machang could only beat Armed Forces 2-0, while their final pool opponents TBSS had hammered the Army boys 8-0.
Hamzah got their goals off Nur Badruzzaman (31st) and Faizal Razab (70th). In Group B, St John of Kuala Lumpur beat Seksyen 11 of Selangor 4-0 with goals from R. Ramesh (40th), Ahmad Kafeel (58th), Joel van Huizen (65th) and A. Kaartheik (67th).
RESULTS: GROUP A -- Tunku Besar Tampin (NS) 2 Seberang Temerloh (Pah) 1, Armed Forces 0 Hamzah Machang (Kel) 2.
GROUP B: St John (KL) 4 Seksyen II (Sel) 0, Khir Johari (Ked) 1 Sultan Abu Bakar (Joh) 0.
TODAY -- GROUP A: Mutiara Impian (Pg) v Tunku Besar Tampin (NS) 3.30pm, Seberang Temerloh v Armed Forces (5.30pm); Group B: Anderson (Pk) v St John (KL) 7.30am, Seksyen II (Sel) v Khir Johari (Ked) 9.30pm.
GROUP A
P W D L F A Pts
NEGRI 2 2 0 0 10 1 6
PENANG 2 1 1 0 3 2 4
KELANTAN 3 1 1 1 1 6 4
PAHANG 2 1 0 1 4 2 3
ARMED FORCES 3 0 0 3 1 12 0
GROUP B
P W D L F A PTS
PERAK 2 2 0 0 8 1 6
KEDAH 3 2 0 1 7 4 6
K LUMPUR 2 1 0 1 6 5 3
JOHOR 3 1 0 2 3 8 3
SELANGOR 2 0 0 2 1 7 0