The Sri Lankan Youth Netball team booked their ticket to the finals of the Asian Youth Netball Championships when they defeated 3rd ranked Singapore 69-56 in their encounter at the MacPherson Stadium in Hong Kong today.
Sri Lanka began the game as favourites after having ousted top ranked defending champions Malaysia yesterday and did not disappoint.
What has been impressive throughout the tournament so far is the speed that the Lankan team has displayed. Here too their passes were slick and decision making was impeccable.
After some impressive ball handling, the 1st quarter ended at 21-15 in favour of Sri Lanka. Singapore too did not go down without a fight, cutting the lead to 3 goals with 2 minutes to go to half time.
But Sri Lanka’s defense, led by Captain Gayani Dissanayake upped their game and managed to restore a 7 goal lead by half time.
Once again the combination of Dulangi Wannithilake and Gayanjali Amarawansa at Goal Attack and Goal Defense respectively worked wonders as the Singaporeans struggled to mark them. It was much of the same in the 3rd and 4th quarters as Sri Lanka kept up the pressure at both ends.
Wannithilake took the long range shots when given space but otherwise looked to capitalize on the height advantage Goal Shooter Thisala Algama had over her counterpart by lobbing the ball to her in the shooting circle.
Algama’s shooting was exceedingly accurate yet again, although she did seem to be nursing a knee injury. Sri Lanka pulled away in the latter part of the game to ultimately register an easy 69-52 win.
The win ensured that Sri Lanka will play in the finals even if they lose their last Cup round match to Hong Kong tomorrow.
With Singapore and Malaysia both sitting on one win a piece in the cup round, tomorrow’s match between the two teams will decide who gets to face Sri Lanka in the finals.
Whichever team ends up on the losing end of the fixture will face Hong Kong in the Bronze medal playoff on Sunday.
In the other cup round fixture, Malaysia defeated 4th seeded Hong Kong comfortably to set up what will effectively be a semi-final between them and Singapore tomorrow.
Brunei, coached by Sri Lanka’s 1st female Olympian and former head coach of the national netball team Thilaka Jinadasa, secured their spot in the Plate final with a comfortable win over Chinese Taipei while Thailand rose off the bottom of the Plate table with a win over Japan.
Thailand and Chinese Taipei will face off tomorrow, with the winner moving on to face Brunei in the Plate final while the loser takes on Japan for the 7th/8th place playoff on Sunday.
Thailand finished 5th in the last edition of the tournament, followed by Brunei at 6th. However, Brunei has shown a great deal of improvement under the leadership of Jinadasa, who is also the coach of their senior team.
As the Bowl competition is to be decided in the round robin stage, the race is on with Abu Dhabi securing their 2nd win of the round in a nail biting finish against India today.
Both India and Maldives have a win a piece and so theoretically all three teams have a chance of walking away with a trophy depending on their performances tomorrow while Pakistan is languishing in last place with no wins under their belt.
Scores – Day 5
India 44 – 45 Abu Dhabi
Maldives 54 – 35 Pakistan
Chinese Taipei 37- 50 Brunei
Japan 26 – 52 Thailand
Sri Lanka 69 – 56 Singapore
Malaysia 65 – 36 Hong Kong
Matches scheduled for day 6
Brunei vs Japan
Thailand vs Chinese Taipei
Singapore vs Malaysia
Hong Kong vs Sri Lanka
Abu Dhabi vs Maldives
Pakistan vs India
