Singapore booked a place at next year’s Netball World Cup in South Africa after seeing off regional arch-rival Malaysia 54-41 in the Asian Netball Championship semi-final at the OCBC Arena, Singapore Sports Hub on Saturday afternoon. Sri Lanka defeated Hong Kong 67-43 in the other semi-finals played on the same day.
Singapore will face Sri Lanka in the final on Sunday in a rematch of the 2018 Asian Netball Championship with the South Asian nation winning the match 69-50.
Although they were without veteran goal shooter Charmaine Soh who suffered an injury early in the tournament, the hosts were spurred on by strong home supporters who cheered them on as Singapore clawed back from being 5-7 down to taking a 13-11 lead at the end of the first quarter.
While Singapore managed to put on a confident display in the second quarter and extend their advantage to 28-11, it was a nervy third quarter as the Malaysians narrowed the gap to 36-33.
Singapore calmed their nerves in the final quarter as they took back control of play, displaying seamless passing, solid defending and accurate shotmaking to take the win in emphatic fashion.
Most of the cheer in the stands arguably goes to goal shooter Lee Pei Shan whose job was to keep her composure whenever she gets the ball from her teammate at the end of the court.
“We had a lot of pressure on the shooters and the mid-court players to bring out the ball and shoot. In the third quarter we were losing a lot so we tried to stay composed until the end,” said Lee who converted 90% of her attempts to contribute 35 goals.
“I made a promise to my team that I will take the ball and shoot, and I told them to give me the ball so that every goal I shoot gives them motivation to bring down the ball more.”
It was a special day for Kimberly Lee as she earned her 100th international cap on Saturday.
“All the emotions are coming back from the past eight years. I’m very proud of the team, we’re one of the youngest here but we’ve really grown a lot over the past two years and this is the result of our hard work,” said Kimberly.
“The Malaysian team came back really strong, they’re known to be fighters and they wouldn’t give up even with such a big score line, and I think on our part we shouldn’t have eased off and we started to go off their game plan. But I think the team managed to gel back together and go back to what we were doing,” added the wing attack.