Double trouble: Nanyang Girls' High defends C Division basketball title; National JC claims 1st C Division boys title

Despite only finishing second, RGS captain Lim Jing En was proud of her team's progress. “The result doesn't matter as long as we give 100 percent,” she said.

In the C boys' final, National Junior College (NJC) beat Jurong Secondary School 52-32, completing a stunning comeback.

They were eliminated in the quarter-finals of the South Zone competition a year ago and had not even managed to reach the national stage.

But this year they tried hard and reached the semi-finals of the competition for the first time in the school's history before winning their first championship title.

Captain David Ho said the win was “a long time coming”. The 14-year-old added: “We have trained hard all year, we are finally here today and we played very well together and, most importantly, we won as a team.”

“Since our elimination in the South Zone (in 2023), we have all been focused on one goal and that is to win the championship today.”

He believes the catalyst for the team's turnaround lies in their willingness to work on their weaknesses, including communication and defense.

He explained: “We started training for this season right after last season. Since the end of last year we have just been focusing on what mistakes we made and why we were eliminated.”

“The most important thing is that we were able to correct our mistakes, such as our bad starts, which led to us losing from the beginning.”

NJC started more aggressively and used full-court pressing from the start. The strategy paid off, as they took an 18-9 lead after the first quarter and never gave it up. In the third quarter, they even beat Jurong 17-5.

David revealed that they knew how important it was to get off to a good start. He said: “We always struggled to make a mark in the first few games. Today we… finally made a mark at the start and then we slowly pulled away.”