Malaysian University (MU) celebrated a 2-1 victory over debutants CS Mustang HT in a hotly contested match to clinch the TNB-Malaysian Women’s Hockey League 2024 title at the National Hockey Stadium last Wednesday.
The varsity team, previously known as PKS-Uniten-KPT, ended a six-year wait for the league title. MU claimed their first silverware at the start of the 2024 League season by defeating Neger Sembilan in the Charity Shield.
Malaysian University held Negeri Sembilan, coached by K. Rajan, to a 2-2 draw in regulation time of the League match on February 7 before prevailing 3-0 on penalty shootout to determine the Charity Shield winner.
“We are now headed into the Vivian May Soars Cup two-leg semi-finals match against Negeri Sembilan. It is going to be another round of tough matches for us. PDRM Blue Warriors, China’s Liaoning team and Negeri Sembilan are equally determined to win the Cup,” said Lailin.
The semi-finals matches will be held on March 5. Malaysian University will take on Negeri Sembilan (6.00pm) and PDRM Blue Warriors go head-to-head against Liaoning (8.00pm). Both matches will be played at the National Hockey Stadium.
“We will make strategic changes against Negeri Sembilan. The four days of rest will give the players enough time to recover. We had many chances against CS Mustang to register a comfortable big win but could not capitalize on the opportunities created and ended up playing under a lot of pressure.” said Lailin, who admitted that he felt uncomfortable when Mustang took the lead in the seventh minute of play through Nur Irdina Asnida Binti Mohd Yusmi.
Malaysian University finally made their breakthrough with goals from Nurmaizatul Hanim (PC,12th) and Dian Nursyakira Najwa (FG, 23rd) to prevail until the end.
“It was a nervy match. Imagine if Mustang had scored two goals from the opportunities that came their way in the third and fourth quarters, it would have been a different story. We dominated the match in all four quarters. I think we had more than 12 penalty corners but found it difficult to score as Mustang had almost 8 players parked in the semicircle,” observed Lailin.
“I want the players to learn from the mistakes against CS Mustang. We need to double our efforts against Negeri Sembilan in the semi-finals,” he said, adding that there will be no room for complacency.
