One more match to claim title

KUALA Lumpur Hockey Club (KLHC) placed one hand on the League title when they beat Sapura 3-0 in the Premier Division of the Malaysia Hockey League at the Tun Razak stadium yesterday.
Now, they only have to win one more match in the remaining three to confirm as League champions.
Razie Rahim made his presence felt again when he led KLHC to another sizzling encounter against Sapura, and by half-time, the defending League champions were leading by two goals.
The National No 2 penalty corner flicker stole the show with a powerful drag flick in the 20th minute to give KLHC the lead, and his second penalty corner attempt in the 27th minute was also accurate to the dot to take his tally to 13 goals.
Sapura were guilty of missing their chances, when they bungled four penalty corners in the first half, taken by their skipper S. Kuhan and South Korean Lim Woo Geun.
The second half was equally sizzling, until rain forced play to be stopped for 40 minutes in the 48th minute.
But it did not slow down the match, as Sapura won two consecutive penalty corners, but both were botched by poor stopping.
The ball was stolen nicely in the second botched penalty corner and Chua Boon Huat's reverse stick found Ismail Abu who slotted home the third goal with ease while sapura players were still in the KLHC 25-yard area.
In another match, UniKL beat Yayasan Negri Sembilan with Phillip Stahr the hat-trick hero with goals in the 11th, 29th and 66th minutes. The YNS goals were scored by Vivek Gupta (40th) and Deepak Thakur (67th).
Meanwhile, the bottom half clash between Nur Insafi and Armed Forces-Airod turned out to be a seven goal thriller, with the winning goal coming seconds from the final hooter.
The Army men eventually triumphed 4-3, even though they were down by two goals by the sixth minute itself.
R. Veerachamy slammed in the first in the fifth minute, and a minute later he was on target again to hand Nur Insafi a healthy 2-0 lead.
However, the Penang-based club crumbled big time after that as Azman Hassan (eighth) and Zulkifli Abdullah (25th, 59th) injected hope of an Army victory.
But in the 69th minute, Nur Insafi were awarded a penalty stroke, which was comfortably converted by Veerachamy for a hat-trick.
The joy of sharing points was crushed seconds later, as just after the restart, Armed Forces mounted an attack and Shahrul Amran handed his team full points.
RESULTS -- PREMIER DIVISION: Nur Insafi 3 Armed Forces-Airod 4, Sapura 0 Kuala Lumpur Hockey Club 3, Maybank 1 Tenaga Nasional 2, UniKL 3 Yayasan Negri Sembilan 2.
TODAY -- DIVISION ONE: Ipoh City Hall v Universiti Sains Malaysia (Azlan Shah Stadium, 5pm), UniTen v Bukit Jalil Sports School (KLHA Stadium, 5pm), Armed Forces Jnrs v Bandar Penawar Sports School (Bandar Penawar, 5pm).

PREMIER DIVISION

P W D L F A Pt
KLHC 13 11 1 1 60 19 34
TNB 13 9 1 3 37 16 28
UNIKL 13 8 3 2 24 18 27
SAPURA 13 8 0 5 35 26 24
YNS 14 7 0 7 42 38 21
NUR INSAFI 14 4 2 8 26 42 14
MAYBANK 13 3 3 7 14 20 12
ATM 14 3 0 11 17 50 9
UITM 13 2 0 11 18 44 6

DIVISION ONE
P W D L F A Pt
ATM JNR 9 8 1 0 24 6 25
BPSS 8 5 0 3 15 12 15
MALACCA CC 10 5 0 5 14 12 15
IPOH CH 10 4 2 4 18 20 14
BJSS 8 4 0 4 17 11 12
USM 9 2 0 7 13 28 6
UNITEN 8 1 1 6 7 19 4