UNIKL scrape through

TITLE aspirants UniKL Young Guns edged Bukit Jalil Sports School 3-2, but lost their skipper to a red card in Division One of the Milo-JUnior Hockey League yesterday.
Playing at the Ministry of Education Stadium, UniKL were a pale shadow of themselves, and were lucky to walk away with a victory to keep their League title hopes alive.
UniKL walked onto the pitch like they were expecting an easy victory, but they were proven wrong by BJSS in the 27th minute itself when Fitri Ismail scored off their only penalty corner of the first half.
On the other hand, UniKL wasted seven penalty corners mostly due to bad stopping, and went into the dressing room with their heads low as they trailed by a goal for the first time this season.
However, the pep-talk in the dressing room changed their fortunes, as UniKL came back into the picture off their first penalty corner of the second half in the 39th minute when Nor Aqmal Gaffar scored the equaliser off a direct attempt.
And the second goal followed in the 44th minute, when Haziq Samsul scored off a goalmouth melee after a botched penalty corner attempt.
BJSS refused to give up, and levelled the score at 2-2 in the 50th minute when Wan Mohamed Hazrul slammed in the ball off their second penalty corner of the match.
And in the 55th minute, there was more misery for UniKL as their skipper Taufik Hamid slammed the face of BJSS player Ashraf Alias with his stick, and was red carded by umpire Jasveer Singh.
However, 10-man UniKL held on by sheer grit, and won the match with a 69th minute field strike from Haniff Saidin.
"It was not what we expected, but still, I'm proud of my players as they came back from a goal down too win this crucil match and keep our title holes alive," said UniKL team manager Amir Azhar.
And in the earlier match at the same venue, BJSS Juniors lost 1-0 to USM-MSSSPP.
The solitary goal was scored by Sazli Hussaini in the 30th minute and now it looks like BJSS Juniors are doomed to play in the lower division next year.
Sapura claimed their sixth successive win in Division Two Group A when they hammered Kedah HA Juniors 5-0 at the KLHA Stadium in Pantai.
Sapura took the lead in the 17th minute off Shahfirul Aqmal and in the 26th minute increased the lead through the efforts of Ahmad Iqwan.
In the second half goals from Ammar Adly (41st), Iqwan (45th) and Fadzli Zulkifli (51st) gave them a convincing win.

DIVISION ONE

P W D L F A Pts
THUNDERBOLTS 4 4 0 0 27 3 12
UNIKL 4 4 0 0 17 3 12
Anderson 4 3 1 0 20 9 10
BJSS 5 3 0 2 17 14 9
USM Jnrs 4 2 1 1 11 10 7
MBPJ 6 2 0 4 16 18 6
SSTMI 4 1 0 3 7 18 3
TBSS 5 1 0 4 10 23 3
BJSS Jnrs 6 0 0 6 3 30 0

DIVISION TWO

GROUP A

P W D L F A Pts
SAPURA 6 6 0 0 37 1 18
Poli KPT 6 4 0 2 16 8 12
KHA Jnrs 5 2 2 1 5 8 8
NUR INSAFI 5 2 1 2 8 7 7
KHA-MSNK 5 2 1 2 10 6 7
ANDSON Jnrs 5 2 0 3 13 10 6
MSS Kel 4 2 0 2 6 11 6
MSSPP Jnrs 6 1 0 5 6 24 3
PHNS 4 0 0 4 0 26 0

GROUP B
P W D L F A Pts
OLAK 5 3 1 1 9 6 10
PAHANG 6 3 1 2 10 11 10
MHS 4 3 0 1 8 4 9
DATUK TAHA 4 3 0 1 5 4 9
MPBP 4 2 0 2 5 5 6
KLSS 5 2 0 3 11 10 6
SMKPM 4 1 0 3 8 9 3
TUNAS PAHANG 4 0 0 4 3 10 0

RESULTS -- DIVISION ONE: BJSS Juniors 0 USM-MSSPP 1, MBPJ 2 SSTMI Juniors 1, BJSS 2 UniKL 3.
Division Two, Group A: Negri HA 0 Anderson Juniors 5, Sapura 5 Kedah HA Juniors 0, KHA-MSNK 3 MSSPP-USM Juniors 0, PHK-MSS Kelantan 2 Nur Insafi 1.
Division Two, Group B: Yayasan Pahang 1 Olak-PKT 1, Malacca High School 4 KL Sports School 0, Datuk Taha 1 Tunas Pahang 0.
TODAY: Division Two, A: MSS Kelantan v Negri HA (Seremban II, 4pm).