Pubz Comm Reporter: Grace Chan 

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After a short break due to Chinese New Year, Inter-Hall Games are back! Our girls’ volleyball match against Sheares Hall was held in SRC on 11 February 2008. Our starting six girls were Qian Hong, Kimberly, Stella, Wei-Tse, Wan Ling and Mei Hui. Sheares is known for their prowess in volleyball and it is no wonder that our girls were a bit nervous in the 1^st set. At the score of 1-8 in Sheares’s favour, Yi Fei from our male volleyball team decided to call time out. This was to gather the girls and give them some pep talk to calm their nervousness. This strategy worked as our girls slowly gain their confidence back!

Among the few highlights from the 1^st set was a good drop ball from Wan Ling, our setter. Both Mei Hui and Qian Hong ran for the ball whenever they had the chance to do so. There was lots of good blocking from the team. In fact, Kim managed to block twice and we slowly inched our way up the scoreboard with a score of 9-14. However, Wan Ling strained her muscle. Still, with grit and determination, she continued playing on for the team. Our team attacked Sheares with spikes from Stella, Kim and Mei Hui. Their efforts did not go in vain as we ended the 1^st set with a score of 17-25.

In the 2^nd set, nervousness got the better of our girls again as we trailed Sheares with a score of 3-7. We seemed unable to get the first ball up. Nevertheless, our girls persisted. A drop ball by Kim got the crowd cheering for them and at this point, the score was 7-11 in Sheares’s favour. A time out by our team was called again when we were trailing by 9-17 to regroup the girls. With encouragement from the captain, Qian Hong, our team blazed the scoreboard with 6 consecutive points with Stella serving. This time, Sheares called for a time out as they were only leading with a score of 21-17. When the game resumed, the highlight was the brilliant save by Stella. She dived and hit the ball up and ended with bruises on her legs.  However, with Sheares getting back their confidence, we lost the 2^nd set with a score of 18-25.

Although the girls lost, the entire volleyball team made significant improvements in their game as we had spiking, blocking, rotation moves which were not much seen in last year’s match. Not to forget, Sheares is reputedly the best among the 6 halls, and last year, we actually lost to them with a score of 2-25 and 3-25. All in all, the girls deserve a pat on the back and we are excited to see what is store for the preliminary match against Temasek Hall this coming Friday!

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