IFG Roundup: Week 2

This week we cover a wide array of sports, from the hard-hitting tennis players to the show-stopping display of dominance by our men’s football team, read on to find out more about Team Law’s amazing performance in week 2 of IFG! Spoiler alert: some historic results within! (We even have videos!)

Men’s Football

Coming off an impressive 2016-2017 season where we finished 3^rd in IFG and won both Lawmed and Lawfrat, the Law football team began their 2017-2018 campaign with the unfortunate news that star defender Suriya “can’t play soccer but can still club” Prakash was out for the whole season — even before a single ball had been kicked. Rumour has it that he sustained his injury whilst dabbing at law camp, and we wish him the swiftest of recoveries.

Nonetheless, morale in the squad was boosted by the introduction of several talented y1s, who not only contributed to substance of the team, but also style — the increased playboy count on the team giving resident footballer-cum-Hypebeast Nick Yap a run for his money.

Jokes aside, the team began its campaign against USP, who finally managed to field a team only because of the change to a 7-a-side format this year. The game got off to a scrappy start, with both teams eager to shake off the rust accumulated over the long holidays. Team Law soon took the lead, with Captain Ben’s quick free kick setting star striker Denzyl “Goalpost” Ang free on the edge of the box. Displaying some tidy footwork, Denzyl shrugged off the onrushing defender before dragging a cross-shot across the face of goal for Darren to finish with a simple tap-in at the far post.

Having scored the first goal, much pressure was lifted off us. The team was unable to capitalize on our numerous chances, with newly-minted IVP player Josiah the chief culprit, blaming everything from the grass to the sun to the referee but refusing to admit that he simply had no left leg. The game finished 1-0 to Law.

Up next we faced SDE. In an extremely cagey first half, the team’s defence were caught snoozing on occasion, giving goalkeeper James “I’m sick of invoices” Lek (James was the FOCC treasurer) a chance to finally dirty his shirt. He displayed incredible bravery, coming off his line swiftly at any sniff of danger. The team eventually broke the deadlock, following some intelligent off-the-ball movement by former Balestier Khalsa U-18 player Eugene. Effusing a calming and commanding presence, Eugene threaded the ball to Josiah who received the pass on the half-turn and flashed a left-legged shot (an absolute shocker) towards the far post. The opposing goalkeeper managed to get a hand to it, only for Nick Yap to poke in the rebound with Josiah later claiming “it was all planned to assist you via the goalkeeper”.

The team soon doubled the lead, with one of Ben’s trademark lung-bursting late runs into the box creating chaos amongst the SDE defenders. Darren “Iniesta” Low pounced on the loose ball, dribbling out of a crowded area before sinking a shot into the bottom corner. The game eventually finished 2-0 to Law.

We faced Yale-NUS next, the surprise package of the group. Fielding a team of primarily foreigners, Yale-NUS seemed determined to highlight Singapore football’s arguably falling standards, comprehensively beating USP, Science and SDE in their previous games. They even had a coach and were tactically cohesive and technique-sound. Not to be outdone, the law team began the match with much hunger and resolve, with Josiah putting his IVP training to good use, pressing the opponents’ defence with frightening intensity. The Law team’s collective pressing was too much for the opponents, as they started making mistakes.

As the momentum swung in our favour, Marc “Legend” Leung punted a hopeful high ball behind the Yale-NUS’s defence. Star striker Denzyl displayed incredible athleticism and sheer upper body strength, out-muscling the defender and the onrushing goalkeeper, before heading the ball just beyond the grasps of the keeper. The individual brilliance silenced the crowd (of mostly Yale-NUS girls). Denzyl would later go on to brag about how he “took a punch to the face” just to score the goal. Despite the onslaught of subsequent Yale-Nus attacks, the law team held on and eventually won 1-0, sealing qualification to the semi-finals.

For the final game of the day, the team faced a dejected Science team, who had been eliminated earlier on. Against the run of play, Science surprisingly took the lead after some hesitant defending. Facing a losing situation after so long, the team was stunned. However, we dug deep and responded with the trademark high pressing style. At one opportune moment as the ball was played back to the Science keeper, tireless runner Jansheer Ahamed slipped in and attempted to intercept the ball. The ball ricocheted off the goalkeeper, onto the path of the onrushing Ben. The Captain, displaying the composure of an “A” div finalist, calmly slotted the ball into back of the net, bringing us level and back into the game.

As rain started falling, the game soon increased in tempo. Following some intricate footwork and body feints by Avril “Mesut Ozil-style” Lim which completely bamboozled his defender, we took the lead as Darren appeared at the far post to smash the ball into the top corner. The game concluded 2-1 to Law, with Darren being particularly wasteful in front of goal, giving up the chance to score a hat-trick.

With a perfect record of 4 wins out of 4, the team will be playing Engine in the semi-finals on Wed 6^th Sept 2017 at 7pm at the KR field. Supporters are much welcome, and will be treated to the possibility of witnessing ex-captain Josiah finally open his scoring account this season.

 

Women’s Football

On Saturday, 26 August 2017, the Law women’s soccer team made their name in the history books as LEGENDS. Yes, you got that right law school — WE WON! WE ACTUALLY WON! Well, we won one match out of four…but still. Law scored 2 brilliant goals against Dentistry (videos below!) and that was enough to earn us 3 valuable points to put us in eighth place overall (among ten faculties).

To anyone curious how we fared in the other matches:

Law — Med: 0 — 5
Law — Science: 0 — 8
Law — Business: 0 — 3

This year’s honourable mention goes to Y1 Nasyrah for her debut as goalkeeper. Truly a splendid effort from Nash who only started goalkeeping training just the week before. We’ll let the videos do the talking:

Nasyrah and Neuer both start with the letter “N” — coincidence? I think not. Also, shoutout to Nash’s cousin for recording all the videos.

And now, for the moment you’ve all been waiting for the top-drawer goals earned by Y1 Trixie “Lukaku” Ng and Y2 Sharifah “Aguero” Nabilah. To anyone acquainted with the footballing world, you may think I’m overstating. But watch the videos and you’ll see.  Trixie’s style is everything you would expect from a centre-forward. She’s quick, she’s powerful and she definitely didn’t disappoint.

Sharifah’s goal deserves a slow-mo and you can see why. She dribbled past THREE defenders and smashed the ball into the bottom corner. The goalkeeper did not even stand a chance.

The team would like to express their gratitude to Coach, Captain and unrivalled Centre-Back Y3 Mathea Lim for her tireless dedication to the team. Next year will be our year, for sure.

 

Road Relay

While many were asleep after a long week of lessons, runners from the various faculties gathered at UTown on the morning of 28 August for the 2017 IFG Road Relay. The training leading up to the race had been tough, with sessions of high intensity repeats around the CCAB track and recovery runs in-between workout days. Our team was in high spirits as we gathered at the Stephen Riady Centre and the familiar adrenaline rush began to set in as we began our warm up around the race route.

The race route was a 1.8km loop around UTown. The initial moments of the race would be on flat terrain before runners would be greeted by a long slope with multiple turns during their ascent. The final half of the race was on undulating terrain with steep slopes and sharp descents along the way. The combined aspects of the terrain and intensity of the middle-distance run made the race a challenging one. Nevertheless, we were confident that the training had sufficiently prepared us for the race and were prepared to run our best.

The order of runners for the race was as follows:

1) Wei Siang

2) Clara

3) Nadene

4) Julian

5) Yvette

6) Shawn

The race began well for the team as we were among the top 3 teams for most of the first half of the race. Julian closed a sizeable gap with engineering to bring us into the lead. However, despite a valiant effort, we were overtaken by several runners along the way, earning us a hard fought 4th place finish.

Despite the lack of a podium finish, the team was happy with the commendable result as many in the team had greatly improved their personal timing in the build up to the race. The team would like to thank our Captain Shu Yih for organising and encouraging us during the training sessions. It is our hope to see more faces at road relay trainings next year as we seek to find fellow runners who enjoy the thrill of sprinting through the finish line.

 

Women’s Basketball

The team fought long and hard, and left their blood, sweat and tears on the court. With a team made up of mostly inexperienced players, it was a lot of fun for the girls. Except for the part when Abigail dislocated her thumb jumping for the rebound (which was pretty sad and painful too).

Starting off with the first game against Yale-NUS, Joli made the first shot for the team not long before Abigail put her thumb on the line, dislocating it in the process. MVP performances from Joli and Luyi but the game ended 28-3 in Yale-NUS’ favour.

The team put up a brilliant fight against the subsequent games against Science, FASS and Computing but sadly we fell through defeated. The highlight of the day being the game against FASS where we finally managed to string together a double-digit score line for Team Law, ending the game 37-10. An amazing feat given the stark contrast in experience between us and our opponents.

It was a fantastic campaign all round, with the spectators treated to a fantastic display of tenacity and grit by the girls.

 

Tennis

Despite a disappointing run last year, the tennis team was determined to give it their all at this year’s IFG. In the sweltering heat, the team sprayed on some sunblock (which they later realised had no significant effect whatsoever), picked up their rackets and headed to the courts.

Captain Kai Jiun decided to let the freshmen step up to the plate in their first match-up against USP with Jong playing the Men’s Singles, Gillian playing Women’s Singles and Wei Sze playing Men’s Doubles (with y4 Russell). This year, we weren’t able to field a Women’s Doubles team in any of our match-ups, but seniors Eng Han and Agnes took on the Mixed Doubles valiantly.

Up and coming law tennis star Jong got into the groove quickly and didn’t let his opponent settle down — winning 6-1. Team Law ended the morning taking the lead overall against USP (21 games to 16) and prepared to face an even bigger challenge in the afternoon – Team Med.

Looking at the size of the Medicine contingent was daunting enough, watching them warm up was even scarier. Y1 Abel took on the Men’s Singles while Captain Kai Jiun, paired with Joel to put up a tough fight in the doubles. Team Med lived up to their reputation and we weren’t able to take a set off them.

Day 2 of IFG began gloomily with rain drenching the courts and delaying play as well as the absence of Jong and Agnes. However, our spirits were lifted by the appearance of y4 Chelsea. Chelsea and Russell, took on the Mixed Doubles match-up against our first opponents, SDE and won convincingly, 6-2. Gillian also settled into the Women’s singles match and took out her opponent 6-3. Abel and Kai Jiun paired up to take on the Men’s Doubles while Wei Sze took on the Singles. Both match-ups were a tough struggle and Wei Sze was forced to a tiebreak which he eventually won 7-6(4).

With our gears running, our team went on to face Dentistry, who were unable to field a Men’s Singles player, so Abel and Kai Jiun fired away in the Doubles, winning 6-3. Self-proclaimed “Jie Jie” Chelsea took the Women’s singles and showed ‘em how it’s done by earning us another win! Gillian and Eng Han settled in for a long match and eventually prevailed in the Mixed Doubles, 7-5.

Feeling in good spirits, the team prepared to face yet another heavy-weight team with lots of experienced players — Biz. Dark clouds threatened to delay the match and the courts even got a bit slippery with some light rain. But as things soon cleared up, we sent our part-time tennis/rugby player, Russell against the captain from Biz. Both hard-hitters with big forehands, the match was incredibly exciting but Biz prevailed eventually. Chelsea fought it out from the baseline in her Singles match, putting the ball back in play every time her opponent thought she’d delivered the winning shot.

After a very long day, the last match that was still going on after everyone had finished was the Men’s Doubles where Abel and Kai Jiun faced a pair with an incredible left-handed player and his partner who was wearing a hell lot of Roger Federer apparel. This last match was a battle of ground strokes from the baseline as well as some beautiful work at the net, but also a roller-coaster of emotions because despite going down 4-2, our team fought their way back to 5-4 and even unnerved the opponents so much so it caused the lefty to throw his racket in frustration. The match reached Sudden Death with Team Biz serving to close out the match.  Unfortunately, an unforced error from us sealed the set and sent Team Biz to the Semis with Team Med.

Even though we didn’t win IFG, we clearly won Best Team Pose! (Choreography by Chelsea)

Thanks to all the captains for their input. Stay tuned for next week’s IFG Highlights!!