Saturday February 9, 2013

MBPJ and UniKL down to meet in semis

KUALA LUMPUR: Petaling Jaya City Council (MBPJ) and Universiti Kuala Lumpur (UniKL) have the same mission – to wrest the MHC-Milo-NSC Junior Hockey League overall title from Tunku Mahkota Ismail Sports School (SSTMI)-Thunderbolt.

But before they can do that, they will probably have to contend with one another in the semi-finals after being placed in the bottom half of the draw in the knockout stage.

Thunderbolt, aiming for their second straight double, have MBI-Anderson in their half of the draw.

The four teams will know who their quarter-final opponents are on Feb 18.

The other quarter-finalists are SSTMI Juniors and Malacca High School, the fifth and sixth-placed teams from Division One, and the winners of the playoff matches between MSS Kelantan-Politeknik KPT and KLSS- Anderson Juniors.

MBPJ, however, will have to play in the quarter-finals without two of their experienced players – Mohd Asraf Zulzali and Mohd Khairul Shafik, who will have to serve out three-match suspensions for the red cards they received in the preliminary rounds.

Malaysian Hockey Confederation (MHC) secretary general Johari Abdul Aziz clarified yesterday that all bookings will be carried forward into the knockout stage.

“There is no issue here as the teams were told at the team managers’ meeting that the cards will be carried forward,” he said.

Meanwhile, Kuala Langat MSD have been thrown out of the junior league after failing to turn up for their last two Division Two Group B matches on Monday and Wednesday against KLSS and Politeknik-KPT respectively.

All their previous results have also been declared null and void.

This has resulted in KLSS and Politeknik-KPT being declared the winners and runners-up of Group B respectively. The Division Two final has been set at Feb 17.

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