Double victory for Sabah Handball Project team
KOTA KINABALU: Sabah Handball Project achieved the double at the inaugural Sabah Open Handball Championship 2017 held at the Juara Sports Arena in Putatan near here yesterday.
The state project squad won the men’s title after beating FAM Union of Kuching, Sarawak 11-6 in the title match.
MJ Galaxy settled for third placing after beating PBB KK B 10-5 in the playoff.
The top four teams received RM1,500 prize money plus trophy medals and certificates while the runners-up pocketed RM1,000, trophy, medals and certificate and RM700 for the third place team plus trophy, medals and certificates while fourth place received RM500 plus medals and certificates.
In the women’s category, Sabah Handball Project team however needed to dig deep into their reserves before claiming a narrow 5-4 win over PBB Sandakan in the final.
Kalawon team finished in third after defeating Nabalu Women Handball Club 5-3 in the playoff.
The top three in the category won RM1,000, RM800 and RM600 respectively as well as trophies, medals and certificates. The fourth placing collected RM300 plus medals and certificates.
Sabah State Handball Association (SABHA) with the cooperation of the Youth and Sports Ministry organised the three-day tournament, which saw 12 men’s and eight women’s teams participating.
Tournament director Ag Ku Mohd Zulfadhli Pg Jaafar said the response from clubs and teams towards the tournament were encouraging and that they would make the event an annual affair.
He said SABHA will do its level best to lift the sport to new levels in the near future while calling for all parties, from technical officials, referees, coaches as well as players, to improve.
“A post-mortem will be conducted to find areas that need improvement,” he said while hoping the referees, players, coaches and technical officials too will try to lift their standards.
The ministry’s permanent secretary Hj Awang Damit Hj Awang Anak, representing the minister Datuk Tawfiq Abu Bakar Titingan, presented the prizes to the winners before declaring the tournament closed.
Also present were Sabah Schools Sports Council coordinator for handball Abdul Hakim Ag Ali and the ministry’s assistant secretary for sports division Razali Zinin.