Green Hornets are out to sting again

KUCHING: SMK Green Road are looking to excel in the Majlis Sukan Sekolah Sekolah Malaysia ( MSSM) Kuching Boys U18 InterSchool Softball Tournament which kicked off at St Thomas School’s field on Tuesday.

Only five teams SMK Green Road, SM St Thomas, SMK Penrissen No 1, SMK Pending and SMK St Joseph have registered for this competition hosted by SMK Penrissen No 1 from Jan 30 to Feb 2.

“We are targeting to win the competition so that we can represent Kuching in the Majlis Sukan Sekolah ( MSS) Sarawak because none of our players represented Kuching last year,” said team technical advisor Juraimie Junaidi.

He is also hoping for some of their school players who call themselves the Green Hornets to be selected to represent Sarawak in the national MSSM Championship.

“We are f ielding a mix of form two, form three and form five players for the inter school challenge as we want to expose the younger players,” said Juraimie.

According to him, there were problems in forming a good team as there was limited time to prepare them for the first competition of the year.

“This is the first time that the inter school meet is being held in January. We could not carry out our training smoothly due to the wet weather which affected the school field condition too.

“Making the matter worse was the lack of equipment such as gloves and backstop,” he lamented.

What Juraimie most appreciated was the teacher coaches and the players who sacrificed their time for the training sessions from Monday to Thursday and Saturday every week.

“I would also like to thank the parents for their firm support. Our new principal Abang Othman Abang Masagus and the school management have also been very supportive of the sport and activities,” he added.

Juraimie would also like to see more competitions organised for schools so that the students can gain more experience.

“It would be a waste if the students spend a lot of time training and some even buy their own equipment which are quite expensive only to use it for three or four days in a competition.

”We should promote this sport more actively and prepare a team that can give positive challenge to others states in the national MSSM meet.

“I believe Sarawak have some good softball coaches and quality players to achieve that. Give them a try,” he said.