KUCHING: The Kuching boys clinched their first U17 crown when they edged Bintulu 49-48 in a thrilling final of the Sarawak Inter-Division U17 Basketball Championship at Miri Basketball Association stadium on Wednesday.
Kuching boys and girls players posing with team coaches and officials after the prize presentation. The boys emerged champions while the girls finished as runners-up in the state meet. — Photo by Tommy Ng
Last year’s fourth place finisher Kuching, anchored by national youth trainee Alvin Lau and Khoo Yik Hock, played a tight defensive and offensive game against last year’s runners-up Bintulu in the first half.
Alvin scored 11 points and eight rebounds to give his team a 28-26 lead at half-time.
Kelvin, who was one of the key players for Bintulu Eagles in this year’s Sarawak Imperial Cup, also did well with 11 points and eight rebounds in the second half.
In the third quarter, the many days of vigorous games took the toll on Bintulu point guard Josh Wong who had to be subsituted after he suffered cramps and Kuching took advantage of this to pull ahead 41-33.
Josh returned to the court in the final quarter to help Bintulu close the points gap, where in the last 19 seconds the score stood at Bintulu 46, Kuching 49.
With only nine seconds left, Kelvin made a three-point attempt from outside the ring but was unsuccessful.
However, he followed up with a rebound to score two points to put Bintulu only one point behind Kuching.
Kuching defended with all their lives and survived the last seconds of onslaught from Bintulu to win the boys competition.
Alvin top scored for Kuching with 20 points and 20 rebounds while Andrus Jong scored 10 points and made seven blocks. On the other hand, Kelvin was Bintulu’s best player with 23 points and 13 rebounds.
Earlier, in the play-off for third and fourth placings, Miri edged defending champions Sibu 67-66.
The girls title was won by Sibu while second to fifth were Kuching, Sarikei, Miri A and Miri B.
Kuching Division Basketball Association chairman Voon Soon Liong was pleased with the performance of both the boys and girls teams, saying that the one month’s training was key to their success.
“Our teams have better understanding and good teamwork and they have both achieved their targets of finishing among the top two in the championship. It was a good improvement from last year’s results,” said Voon.
He is very confident that the girls team will come back stronger next year to challenge for the title as members of the present squad are mostly aged between 15 and 16, with one or two players aged 14.
Girls coach Lee Chee Beng was also happy that his team had achieved their target.
“We were third last year and this year we finished as runners-up. I must say our girls have played well and against a stronger Sibu side during the league match, our girls did well in the first three quarters but were unable to keep their momentum going in the final quarter,” he remarked.
Before the competition, Kuching boys coach Chai Tze Kiong, an ex-national player, felt that four teams Sibu, Kuching, Bintulu and Miri had equal chances of winning the title as their standard were on par with each other.
“As we look at the results, it was Sibu that looked the favourite team to win the championship but it was a very close fight in the final stages.
“We beat Miri 69-63 while Bintulu upset Sibu 54-50 in the semi-finals,” said Chai.
“Alvin Lau was a major contributor to our success as the majority of the points scored came from him,” he added.
Kuching opened their campaign with a resounding 85-53 win over Samarahan and it was followed up with the trouncing of Sarikei 83-51.
In their final Group A match against Sibu, Kuching won by only two points (78-76) to top the table standings with 6.5 points from three wins. The 0.5 points was awarded for fielding ‘tall talent’ player in the matches.
Meanwhile, five boys and seven girls from Kuching are included in the initial selection for the state squad that will compete in the national U17 basketball championship in Semenanjung Malaysia later this year.
The boys are Amos Abel Then, Khoo Yik Hock, Andrus Jong, Chin Guan Wen, Tan Yen Ming while the girls are Yvonne Liong Yi Hiang, Regina Kua Siok Mei, Iris Lok Woon Woon, Khoo Yik Chi, Mildred Thien Wen Yee, Chung Siaw Yen and Hannah Lau Ruo Yi.