Individual award winners (from left) Vagressia, tournament Best Player Juliani Md Din from Sabah, Pamelia and Fazillah.
The state women’s team posing after the prize presentation on Saturday night. — Photos by Beatrice Sawin
KUCHING: Sarawak kept an unbeaten record to emerge the women’s champions at the Borneo Cup hockey championship after they edged host Sabah 2-1 in the final played at the Likas Stadium in Kota Kinabalu last Saturday.
Sukma player Jeneter Kadir and former national player Bulan Sauh scored for Sarawak through a field goal and penalty corner respectively while national player Lily Juliani netted Sabah’s solitary goal.
En route to the final, Sarawak had whipped Brunei 10-0, beat Sabah 2-0 and thrashed Labuan 18-0 in the league matches.
“It was an exciting and very good match and my girls took their chances well to beat a good Sabah side which had many national juniors,” was how Sarawak coach Sivasubramanian C described the final.
With Sabah having one national player and three national trainees, Sivasubramaniam had predicted his team’s chance of winning as 50-50.
“Our team was affected by injuries and players going down with flu and fever. I am very happy that despite of all those, we can still win the Borneo Cup.
“I am very satisfied with the overall performance of my
players and as for the younger and Sukma shadow team players, it has been a very good exposure for them. The young ones have proven that they can score and played well against Brunei and Labuan,” he added.
Sarawak claimed more honours as three players won individual awards, with Pamelia Tia as the Best Goalkeeper, Vagressia Apang as joint Top Scorer (9 goals) with Sabah’s Nurain Moun while Fazilla Sylvester Silin was named the Player of the Match in the final.
Finishing third and fourth were Brunei and Labuan respectively.
The Borneo Cup was last held in 2002 in Brunei where Sarawak also took top honours.
Meanwhile, the state men’s team finished second after losing 3-5 to Sabah in the final.
Third and fourth placed teams were Brunei and Labuan respectively.
Sarawak’s Mathius Macrin Bender won the Best Goalkeeper award.