Last Friday, Daphne told me about a special promotion where bloggers could get free tickets to last Sunday's Slingers vs Philippine Air 21 game. Many people from my work enjoy watching basketball so I took advantage of the opportunity.
As I arrived I saw how sparse the crowd was and realized why they needed bloggers to promote their show. The entire top level of Singapore Indoor Stadium was empty, and about half of the people on the lower levels were sitting in the boxes designed for corporate sponsors.
Despite the fact that the tickets were general admission, the view was excellent. We were four rows up on the north side of the stadium. We were close enough that the players could probably hear us as we cheered.
Al Vergara was a last minute stand-in for Jason Castro.
The two teams were evenly matched. In the beginning of the game, the Slingers seemed sure to lose. The Philippine team kept a healthy lead. At one point in the second quarter the Slingers were down 38 to 42.
But despite having an extraordinary number of Filipino fans turn up to the game, the Slingers would eventually pull ahead and win with a score of 98 to 85.
Armein Kirkland is the Slingers only American.
The most exciting play of the game happened in the final thirteen seconds. Darren Ng, point guard for the Slingers, writes extensively about it on his blog:
For those of you who weren’t there, with 13 seconds remaining, Eric was on the run and taking off for a dunk, when a player from A21 (deCampo I think), walked underneath him and took out his legs. Eric came down horizontally and landed heavily on his back. Everyone who knows basketball knows that this was a pretty dirty play. Eric could have been a lot seriously injured. Ian has posted up some video of it on youtube and the foul occurs at 4:55. There is also highlights of other quarters of the game. (Link)
If you want to learn more about the Slingers, be sure to check their official website.
Also of note, if you want to read about the game from the perspective of a girl that gushes over the players, read it here.
The next Slingers home game will be on Tuesday, September 30 against the Philippine Purefoods team.
Photos in this article were taken with a Nikon D60.
3 comments:
Omigosh, I feel so embarrassed now. Thank you for linking to my blog post. I am really glad that you and your colleagues enjoyed the game.
man... what a game I missed!
when i start my new blog (soon!! watch out for it haha) i wil also gush abt the players hahaha (and i will write a serious article abt the game :P)
and woo hoo! 7.5 days to game day! :)
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