WYC 2010 - Our Girls marches on - Semi-Finals, Here We Come

(Report by BC Cheah from Tali Bowl, Helsinki, Finland)

Malaysia's young bowlers continued to march on at the World Youth Championships 2010 at Tali Bowl, Helsinki, Finland.

In today's Team 2nd block of 3 games bowling on 44 feet long oiling pattern, Sin Li Jane shouldered Team Malaysia to qualify for the Semi-Finals of the Team event.

As a gutsy anchor-lady, Li Jane was instrumental in consolidating her team mates in check game after game. In this morning's 1st game, Siti Safiyah started off with 186, followed by Fatin on 231, Jacqueline on 178 and Li Jane at par 200 for a team's total of 795. Team Malaysia's position dropped two rungs to 3rd place.

In the 2nd game, Siti came off with 179, Fatin struggled with 156, Jacqueline covered up with 211 while Li Jane blazed home with 237 for a sub par 783 total and remained on 3rd position. Close on our heels were teams from England (4th); Colombia (5th) and Latvia (6th).

In the final game, it was neck to neck race between Team Malaysia. Team England, Team Colombia and Team Latvia.

Malaysian team officials regrouped our bowlers together and words of encouragement were transcended to our girls prior to the finale. Started off with a 9 spare, anchor-lady, Li Jane had the ferocious Malaysian supporters/staff from our Malaysian Embassy including our H.E. Ambassador, Mr. Cheah Choong Kit cheering enthusiastically as she reeled seven consecutive strikes and stormed home with an identical 237 game. Siti improved her game with 202, Fatin bowled 172 while Jacqueline finished with 187 for the team's total of 798.

Team Malaysia emerged 3rd placing with a combined series of 4844; Team Korea overtook leader Singapore with 5024; Singapore in 2nd place with 4971; England in 4th with 4774 whilst Latvia missed the Semi-Finals spot by 4 mere pins with 4770.

The Semi-Finals matches are scheduled at 09:00am Saturday July 31, 2010 with 1st seed Korea vs 4th seed England and 2nd seed Singapore vs 3rd seed Malaysia.

Our Malaysian Boys would be in action later this afternoon at 5:00pm local time for the Team's 2nd Block of 3 games.