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The Sarawak team which comprises national youth bowlers, state elite and state elite backup bowlers.
KUCHING (June 4): Sarawak girls continued to create waves at the 41st Malaysian International Open Bowling Championships when state elite bowler Lavinia Kho Jia Jie bagged a double victory at Sunway Mega Lanes on Saturday.
This was after national youth kegler Nur Hazirah Ramli won her first international title by topping the Youth Girls Open on Thursday.
The 18-year-old Lavinia went one better when she bagged the Women’s Open crown and making history as the first Sarawak bowler to ever win a title in the international tournament. a day earlier, she claimed the Women’s Graded title.
State coach Angelo Koay has described the team’s overall performance as one of the best outings Sarawak ever had in an international open competition.
“We won three titles – Women’s Open, Women’s Graded and Youth Girls Open – and another impressive statistic was that our bowlers topped the qualifying charts in the Men’s Open, Women’s Graded, Youth Boys Open and Youth Girls Open,” he told The Borneo Post in an Interview via WhatsApp.
“Despite the qualifying prowess of our athletes, ironically all three titles we won were a show of grit and determination for an amazing comeback story from slow and bad starts in the Masters Finals.
“Multiple Sukma gold medalist Nur Hazirah got the tone going for us when she had a slow start in the Girls Open Masters Final only to bounce back in last three games with a massive score line of 300, 236 and 257 to claim the title.
“Then came Lavinia Kho in the Women’s Graded Masters Finals. Tiredness showed as she bowled eight games in the morning of the Women’s Open Round 1 then with an hour’s break she had to bowl another eight games in the afternoon for the Women’s Graded title.
“Her first three games didn’t look like title winning shots but the lass showed great desire to rile herself up despite the exhaustion to steadily come back to win,” he said.
The next day after the Women’s Graded, Lavinia was up bright and early for the Women’s Open Masters Finals.
Again with a horrendous start of 174 and a mistake-laden second game of 199, languishing in the bottom three, she found her second wind to bowl her heart out to advance to the stepladder semi-finals as the third seed.
In the semi-finals she was up against Nora Lyana (a former National Podium programme athlete) and again she was second best in the first half of the one-game roll-off.
Another display of pure grit saw her doubling up on the 10th to beat Nora 212 to 204.
In the Stepladder Finals Lavinia was up against Colleen Pee of Singapore who got off to a flying start.
The Sarawakian just kept making sure she kept herself alive by staying in the match and got her break with a double on the ninth and 10th frame to win 194 to 176.
In the sudden-death match, it was again a flying start by the Singaporean as she put three strikes in a row early to gain the upper hand.
Refusing to give up, Lavinia again did everything she could to stay in the match. Unwillingness to concede defeat saw her striking the eighth, ninth, 10th and 11th to come back from the dead and pip Colleen 207 to 177.
“Our two girls (Hazirah and Lavinia) really showed what true Sarawak athlete’s spirit is and resolve of ‘Agi Idup Agi Ngelaban’, ‘Anang Ngalah Majak Mansang’ laced with grit, hard work, perseverance, determination and desire can accomplish.
“We are very proud of that and they truly deserved it,” added Angelo.
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