SFL 2015 (Ladies) - Merahan Knightingales

Week 11 of Singapore Floorball League, which is also the final week of all group matches before the final tabulation of group stage result to determine which top 8 teams will qualify for the playoff for 2015 season.

Last week we interview the Merahan Knights, this week we have their sister team – Merahan Knightingales with us on our blog. We interview the team managers, Khalissa Nur Shafiqah and Tan Ming Min about Merahan Knightingales preparation and achievement for this season thus far.

Khalissa is 19 years old with 7 years of playing experience while Ming Min is 23 years old this year with 4 years of playing experience. Khalissa have been playing for the team for 5 years while Ming Min has been with the team for 3 years. Just like the brother team, their Coach is Mr Saravanan.

The club was founded in 2010. Back then; the players were mostly Bukit Merah Secondary School students. Having the opportunity to be part of SFL, it gave these school players the exposure to Floorball in a higher level and to be able to perform better in their inter-school Floorball championship. However, the current team has evolved, it also includes players of different schools and background. The average age of our girls in the team is 18. Most of us are very young and are still studying. To be part of the national Division 1 pitting ourselves against the top teams in Singapore gives us the chance to learn and better ourselves together.

Last year, our team managed to work our way to being one of the semi-finalist, which was really a great motivator for us, being youthful with so much more to learn from our various seniors around us. We have never aimed for less than what we had. We do hope that we can maintain our position in the top 4 or be even better than before. As there are also 8 new players in the team, we are also making use of this season to grow and bond through so that we can come back even stronger as a team for the upcoming season. For this year preparation for our team, as many of our players come from different schools and even country, we have trainings once a week to bring everyone together to keep the bond going.

This year, we welcomed 8 new additions to our family. They are Ili Huda Bte Mohamad Imran, Wannelenah Bte Mohd Alvarez, Siti Nur Raihanah Bte Waled, Shermaine Goh Xin Mei, Adeena Bte Mohamed Nagib, Ivana Sonia AK Beriak, Cheah Pei Yi and Nur Atiqah Bte Abdullah @ AR. All of them have skills that complement the players in our team. The players to look out for in our team this year are Nordiana Bte Mohd Yeari – “Nordiana have always been a consistent player who is self-motivated to perform better. Her teamwork with Nur Saliza is spectacular and might create problems for the opponents.”, Nur Saliza Bte Mohamed Sani - “Similar to Nordiana, Nur Saliza have shown drastic improvement over the years. To have only started picking up Floorball when she was in Secondary 1, the Floorball player she is today is outstanding.”, Siti Nurhaliza Bte Khairul A – “A great player who is very stable in court and is easy to work with. At her age, she has shown great potential and has a long way to go in the Floorball scene.” and lastly Lina Chu – “Lina is driven to always improve on her floorball abilities to be a better player. I admire her desire and passion to improve. She has shown improvement in terms of skills and confidence over the years and is an uprising key player to the team.”

When I ask the ladies to use one word that best describes their team and which team to look out for in the ladies division, they replied – “Zestful.” and “Every team, have actually been training really hard and making sure that they can perform better for this league. Most teams have actually recruited really class players; hence to pinpoint a certain team is really difficult. One thing for sure, it will be an exciting season to look out for.”

Stay tune as we update on the top 8 teams for both division that has qualify for this year playoffs.....