Friday, February 17, 2012

UniKL's seven not enough

UNIKL beat USM Juniors 7-1 to take the Milo-Junior Hockey League Division One title to the wire tomorrow at the Taman Daya Stadium in Johor Baru.
League champions UniKL and SSTMI Thunderbolts are tied on 21 points as well as having a similar six goal cushion, and incidentally, they will square off in the last JHL match of the season to decide the title.
Thunderbolts need a draw, while UniKL need an outright win to defend their title.
"We made it difficult on ourselves by letting in a soft goal against USM, and now will have to beat Thunderbolts on Sunday (tomorrow). We missed too many sitters against USM, and we can't afford that in the last match of the season," said UniKL manager Amir Azhar.
The UniKL goals were scored by Haziq Samsul (14th), Hafiz Zainol (29th, 37th), Nor Aqmal Gaffar (35th), Ibnu Fata Illah (42nd) and N. Kaatigana (56th, 69th).
And the USM consolation was nailed by Rahimi Iskandar in the 46th minute.
"Today (yesterday) the boys did not play according to the game plan and looked lethargic for the first 20 minutes. However, the 3-0 half-time lead was promising, and it looked like we were on target to achieve our seven goal margin but then we let in a simple goal to make it difficult.
"The last two years in the League, we drew 1-1 on both occasions against Thunderbolts and that is why we wanted the goals cushion against USM, but could not achieve it," said Amir.
In the Division Two semi-finals, Sapura beat Batu Pahat 4-2 while Malacca High School beat Politeknik PKT 2-1 to qualify for the quarter-finals of the Overall title chase.
RESULTS: Division One -- SSTMI 3 TBSS 1, MBPJ 3 BJSS Juniors 1, UniKL Young Guns 7 USM Juniors 1.
DIVISION TWO: Semi-finals -- Sapura 4 Batu Pahat 2, Malacca High School 2 Politeknik PKT 1.
TOMORROW: SSTMI Thunderbolts v UniKL Young Guns (Taman Daya Pitch I, 5.30pm), SSTMI v USM-MSSPP Juniors (Taman Daya Pitch II, 3pm),

DIVISION ONE
P W D L F A Pts
THUNDERBOLTS 7 7 0 0 43 7 21
UNIKL 7 7 0 0 42 6 21
BJSS 8 5 1 2 30 17 16
Anderson 8 4 1 3 28 27 13
USM Jnrs 7 3 1 3 16 22 10
MBPJ 8 3 0 5 20 21 9
SSTMI 7 2 0 5 12 33 6
TBSS 8 1 1 6 15 34 4
BJSS Jnrs 8 0 0 8 5 44 0