Summer Youth Olympics 2010: Singapore suffer in volleyball
The U-18 girls’ volleyball competition is part of a multi-sports activity, the Summer Youth Olympics 2010. The volleyball event kicked off on Saturday, 21st August 2010 and both-gender teams played their matches at Toa Payoh Sports Hall in Singapore.
Singapore has the privilege to host the competition this year and it has two teams in each boys and girls squad taking part in the competition. In the female category, Singapore was placed in Group A along with Peru and Japan.
The first pool-play of Group A saw Peru and Singapore eye-to-eye on the opening day of U-18 girls’ tournament. It was the opening match for both teams but Singapore was aware of the fact that it was not an easy task to overcome the strong Peruvian side. Peru finished sixth-place at last year’s World Youth Championship in Thailand.
Although, Singapore was gifted with home-crowds and friendly environments, it couldn’t make its mark and lost bitterly to Peru 0-3.
In the first set, the host team created a weak impression as they failed to penetrate the heavy Peruvian spikes. Singapore’s team was pushed to the back-court area while Peru’s team demonstrated confidence and entertained the fans. They took a lead of 5 points in the first two minutes and further maintained the lead. Singapore could only score points off Peruvian errors. Anyhow, Peru’s team had taller and stronger players, which posted a 25-11 victory in the first set.
The second set couldn’t bring any improvement and Peru held them firm in the court. The hitters of Peru wrecked the opponents and scored points. Somehow, Singapore had the courage to hit back and equalled the points at 4-4. Oddly enough, the points remained equal for a considerable three minutes. The points’ were gradually shifted and Peru took the lead. Peruvians dismissed the host nation in 18 minutes after going up 25-13.
Singapore enjoyed an early lead in the third set but it was short lived. The Peruvians regained a commanding position in the game and scored many points. Singapore lost another set after accepting a 12-25 defeat from Peru and lost the match in straight sets.
Singapore’s captain, Joelle Lim, was the only one who received applause from the local fans as she hit six successful spikes. The captain acknowledged that they were not trained well but fan support motivated them to take on a heavy team. Likewise, the head coach, Low Ho Peng, commented that the younger side of Singapore got nervous because of the tall stature of Peruvian players. Nonetheless, the team performed well to the best of their talent.
On the second day of the tournament, Singapore clashed with another tough opponent and Japan appeared on the other side of the court. Japan greeted the host nation with a delivery of line-shots and bump-passes which flabbergasted Singaporeans.
The game progressed and Japan dominated with strong hits. The first set ended at 25-9 where Singapore could only score 9 points. The second set started and Japan attacked. The host team seemed desperate to achieve a solid ground in the game but it failed. The second set also announced Japan as the winner.
Singapore played the third set half-heartedly as they had already accepted defeat. The results of third set were same as the first set. The Japanese posted a 25-9 victory in the final set.
Singapore lost both the matches in the preliminary round. At the end of first round, Peru is at the top spot with 4 points while Japan followed them with 3 points. Singapore is currently placed at the bottom with only 2 points.
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