15th November, Kuching: Indonesia denied Malaysia a clean sweep of the Team of 4 event at the 18th Asian School Tenpin Bowling Championships with victory in the Boy's division while Malaysia comfortably won the Girl's division.

Malaysia's A team of Muhd Hazim, Tun Ameerul Hakim, Muhd Arif Iskandar and Ahmad Azriq set a blistering pace with a superb 892 in their opening game but was only six pins ahead of two Singapore teams in second and third.

Indonesia's Wibianzo Joaque, Marvin Santoso, twins Patrick and Paolo M. Hernandez added a stunning 908 to their 833 opener to take over the running. Malaysia A donwed a decent 841 but found themselves trailing by 8 pins.

Malaysia A responded with 878 in the third game to end the first block in the lead with 2611. Indonesia did well with 835 but trailed the leader by 35 pins for the break. Singapore A team finished third with 2439.

The lead ended the second block with 856 to seal victory and earned Indonesia's first gold medal of the competition with 5183. Malaysia A and Malaysia B settled for the silver and bronze medals with 5077 and 4857 respectively.

Australia A was perhaps the unluckiest team when they missed the podium by a single pin to Malaysia B despite finishing with a strong 876.

Singles gold medallist, Ivan Tse of Hong Kong A captured his second gold medal by topping the Boy's All Events table with 3949. Muhd Hazim and Ahmad Azriq finished second and third with 3927 and 3924 for the silver and bronze medals.

Doubles gold medallist, Cullum Borck of Australia A missed the podium by 9 pins after finishing fourth. Five Malaysians, three Australians, two each from Hong Kong, Indonesia and Singapore, and one each from India and Kuwait made up the top 16 advancing to the Round-Robin Masters finals.

Meanwhile, the Malaysian A team of Puteri Nurul Dini, Najwa Nazirah, Gillian Lim and Nur Aina Kamalia, who led the first block by 190, was never threatened at any stage of the second block by cruising to a comfortable victory in the Girl's Team of 4 by 333 pins.

Malaysia A team picked up their third straight gold medal with a total of 4959. Singapore A team's Fion Liew, Fiona Yew, Zong Shin Yi and Arielle Tay, who was third in the first block, battled with Australia throughout the second block.

But Australia's Kylie Bailey, Emily Johnston, Chloe Jones and Jamie Phelan snatched the silver medal with a better second block series on a total of 4626. Singapore A hung on to third position with 4605 to earn the bronze medal.

The second Malaysian team made a last minute bid to snatch the bronze from Singapore A but fell short by 56 pins to finish fourth.

Puteri Nurul Dini and Gillian Lim finished one-two for Malaysia A in the Girl's All Events table to win their fourth gold and second silver medals.

Nurul amassed an 18-game total of 3773, four pins ahead of Lim in second. Shin Zong Yi of Singapore A took home the bronze medal with 3665 while Singles silver medallist, Emily Johnston missed the podium with 3629.

The cut at 16th position for the Girl's division went to Chole Jones of Australia with a total of 3366 or averaging 187. Wu Jie Yu of Chinese Taipei missed the cut for the Masters finals by 5 pins.

Five Malaysians, four each from Australia and Singapore, two from Philippines and one from Chinese Taipei made up the top 16 qualifying for the Round-Robin Masters finals.

Photos by Terence Yaw in Kuching, Sarawak.