SINGAPORE — It was a bitter-sweet ending for Springfield Secondary School at this year’s National Inter-Schools ‘C’ Division Floorball Championships.

Springfield missed out on the double after losing 5-3 to Tanjong Katong Secondary School (TKSS) in the girls’ final at Republic Polytechnic yesterday, although they bounced back to take the boys’ title by beating favourites Victoria School (VS) 4-3.

The teacher in charge of floorball at Springfield, Adrian Lim, lauded the result, which was their first national schools crown since winning the taekwondo title this year (‘B’ Division girls) and last year (‘C’ Division boys and girls, ‘B’ Division boys).

“It is a very exciting year for our school’s floorball teams, and especially the way we won our first national title in the sport as our boys’ team were only formed last year,” he said.

Springfield, however, looked nothing like new kids on the block, as they kept defending champions Victoria School on their toes in the 45-minute match (split into three 15-minute periods), with Springfield Captain Nur Irfan’s 10th-minute equaliser cancelling out Ryan Tham’s fifth-minute opener for Victoria.

A long-range effort by Nur and a strike from Nicholas Chua put Springfield 3-1 up by the end of the second period, before Nur completed his hat-trick to put his side 4-1 up in the 35th minute of the third and final period. But a late rally from Victoria, with goals from Ali Noor and Captain Muhd Haziq, made it a nail-biting finish as Springfield held on for the title.

“We were hungrier than VS for the title, and we were also driven by the added motivation to win the championships after our school’s girls’ team lost earlier. We wanted to win it back for our girls, too,” said Nur.

TKSS’ victory earlier gave them their second national schools title in their history, following their ‘C’ Division netball crown last year.

Centre Emily Ong and forward Athiralina Zulfa scored two goals each for TKSS, with Ria Arina accounting for the other, as strikes from Springfield’s Aqila Taib (2) and Nur Amirah proved futile in the end.

“Springfield floorball girls are a strong side. We could have been unbeaten in the whole tournament, but lost to them 5-3 in the second qualifying round before we met again in the final,” said TKSS coach Ngasti Wz.

“Our game plan of a strong defence and counter-attacks won us the game against such an attacking team.”