Angelo (third right), Hazirah (fourth right) and the other state junior bowlers after the prize presentation. — Photo courtesy of Abas
KUCHING: Kuching lass Nur Hazirah Ramli finished second in the recent 41st Storm-Sydney Youth Cup in Campbelltown, Australia.
The 14-year old was one of the six Under-18 state bowlers led by coach Angelo Koay who were invited Down Under by the Australian Tenpin Bowling Association.
After the first day of qualifying in the boys division, Mohd Zuhayr Redza Noor Azrul was in 15th position, Tsen Fan Yew 16th and Abdul Khadir Haziq Ramli in 26th place.
In the girls division, Nur Hazirah was in second place, Asya Dania Azree in fifth spot and Lavinia Kho Jia Jie eighth. The second and final day of qualifying saw Tsen improving on his average to 212 out of 16 games and even finished higher than Asian Youth gold medalist Ren Sameshima of Japan.
Zuhayr maintained his consistency and finished with a 208 average to make the finals in 14th position.
Haziq came back strongly after a dismal 1st block the previous day to finish with a 197 average in 30th position.
Meanwhile, Hazirah stayed consistent with her game and made the top 16 cut for the finals with an average of 207 out of 16 games.
Lavinia and Asya also made it to the finals comfortably in 9th and 12th positions respectively.
The format for the finals was a 15-game matchplay after which the top three boys and girls will qualify for the Stepladder Finals in their respective divisions.
Finalists Tsen and Zuhayr were a little off their best on the day but still fought their best and finished ninth and 15th respectively.
Asya, however, made a huge run in the last five games to finish in a commendable ninth position while Lavinia was in 13th spot.
Hazirah had a good front seven games averaging over 218 pinfalls but was a little off the pace in the final eight games. Still it was enough to see her through into the stepladder finals as the third seed. It was a nerve-wrecking first match between second seed Grace Fahy of Australia and third seed Hazirah as it went down to the very last frame of the game.
Grace needed a mark in the 10th frame but threw a split. Still Hazirah needed to strike on the first shot of the 10th and spare the bonus frame to win by one pin.
Composed, our girl did not disappoint and won the match 187-186.
In the championship stepladder match, Hazirah was up against the first seed and defending champion of the Sydney Cup, Taneisha Griffiths of Australia.
The Australian lefty got off to a superb start with front four frames of strikes while Hazirah tried to keep pace with a double and a couple of spares.
On the sixth and seventh frames, Taneisha gave Hazirah a glimmer of hope when she split and opened but she came back strong in the next three frames with strikes to shut out the Sarawakian.
Taneisha retained her title with a 225 pins versus Hazirah’s 188 pins effort.
“Australia had an abundance of talents in bowling and we were just aiming to qualify for the finals. But after seeing Hazirah’s form in the qualifying first block of eight games, I figured we might be on to something here,” said coach Angelo Koay.
He said a little change of tactics before the start of the 2nd block of qualifying ensured that Hazirah would qualify comfortably through.
“In the Finals, we just made sure we were throwing it good the whole 15 games and we were confident that would qualify us in the top three for the Stepladder Finals cut,” added Angelo.
Angelo was especially impressed with Hazirah who was only into her third international competition abroad.
“She didn’t make the finals in Indonesia on her first international, came back, worked hard and made the finals in Singapore where she led for the first six games. She had two bad games due to inexperience and nerves to finish seventh,” said Angelo.
Hazirah herself was surprised to finish on the podium.
“After a dismal performance in Indonesia and the Milo All-Stars last year, I went talked to my coach and we came up with a plan which was more scientific and systematic plan of training and preparation which was more holistic in approach.
“Together we worked hard on my physical strength, waking up as early as 5am to get to the gym and get back in time for school.
“Psychological and mental strength was also introduced to help me cope with the nerves I sometimes felt,” said Hazirah.
She also invested six times a week of three to four hour sessions to strengthen her physical game.
“It was not easy and I knew it was not meant to be but I knew if I just kept at it, it will be all well worth it,” added Hazirah.
Next up for the Sarawak bowlers will be the Sport Excel-Milo-NSC-MTBC National Junior Circuit Sarawak Leg from Oct 18-19 at Megalanes Sarawak, Emart Batu Kawa.