Malaysia comfortably defeated Sri Lanka 72-54 in the semi-final of the 11th Asian Youth Netball Championship 2019 played at the Kashima Sports Center, Japan.
After being defeated by Singapore 66-58 for the top spot in group A, Sri Lanka were matched against Malaysia who topped group B defeating Hong Kong 62-35.
Sri Lanka opened the scoring before Malaysia made it 4-2, but Sri Lanka quickly managed to equal at 5-5. However, that was as close as Sri Lanka got to their opponents as Malaysia went on a 4-0 run to build a 9-5 lead. The 1st quarter ended with Sri Lanka down 14-10.
Sri Lanka once again managed to score two quick goals to make it 14-12 but turnovers and mistakes saw the 2017 runners-up build a 7-point lead (19-12). At 22-14 they would go on another 5-0 scoring run making it 27-14. Malaysia went into half time leading 32-21 (18-11).
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In the 3rd and 4th quarters both sides scored heavily. The fight back the Sri Lankan girls showed in the 2nd half against Singapore however, was not evident. The 3rd quarter ended with the scores reading 52-37 (20-16).
At 59-40, Malaysia registered their biggest lead of the night, 19, and continued to cruise through the final quarter and ended the game 72-54 (20-17) winning by 18 goals.
Malaysia scored 72 from their 82 attempts with a success rate of 88%. Nazri K. had 42/46 at 91% and S. Coganathan had 15/19 at 79%. Sri Lanka shot at 90% success rate but it was from 60 attempts (54/60). Mellony Wijesinghe was once again on target with 51 from 56 at 91%. Sajini Rathnayake had 3/4.
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