In the final match of day 4, Botswana and Singapore were looking for their second win of the competition as former had only managed a two-point win over Singapore Invitational, and the home team a thumping of unranked Chinese Taipei. 

Both teams took to the court in mixed fashions as Singapore struggled to find a breakthrough early in the first quarter. Botswana, were tight in defence, looking to snuff out forward passes from Singapore, as they took the early 7-4. Singapore then fought back, earning a turnover through captain Micky Lin as they scored three in a row to level the score at 7 all. Undeterred, the opposition continued with their conservative approach picking off Singapore’s chances as they edged the first quarter 10-9. 

The second quarter proved to be a match of chess as the teams took turns to turnover plays and score goals. With neither seeming to gain an advantage, a steal by from the new centurion and a quick give-and-go between Kimberly and Yasmin saw Singapore move in front 19-16. The lead quickly evaporated as Botswana found form, and fatigued started to set in for the Singaporeans. A run of five straight points took the Batswana into a five point lead as the half ended 25-20. 

The third and arguably Singapore’s worst quarter of the game started with Botswana causing mayhem in the goal circle as she weaved her way round the towering GK, Li Li to clinch her highest scoring quarter with nine points. At the other end, a dismal shooting display of five goals saw Singapore lose grip of the match. The quarter ended 37-25. 

Despite winning the last quarter 13-9 and being lifted by an inspired performance from substitute Parveen, the home team was unable to close the 12-point gap, and fell to a 46-38 defeat. 

The Singapore team will seek comfort knowing that a win in the repeat fixture this Saturday would earn them the bronze medal.

Highlights
• Hildah Binang scored 30 of her 38 attempts 
• Botswana scored 81% of their attempts

Score
Botswana vs Singapore
Q1: 10 – 9
Q2: 25 – 20 (15 – 11)
Q3: 37 – 25 (12 – 5)
Q4: 46 – 38 (9 – 13)

Quote from Head Coach

Ruth Atiken, Singapore Head Coach
We know we’ll be playing Botswana again on Saturday. It was a little bit inconsistent, we fell into a little bit of a hole in the third quarter, but it’s good to see we finished strongly. 
Botswana are a very good team, they are a very talented team. We’ve got to be more consistent over four quarters, it was great to see Parveen come on and really make a difference in that last quarter, that was awesome because she’s been a little bit nervous, but that was her best performance so far. 
I thought Shuyi came on really well too, and it was good for us to be able to bring those girls in. We’ve got to enjoy the rest day tomorrow before we play our nemesis, the little sisters on Friday night. 
I thought it was nice that we could mix it up and change it round in the last quarter, the issue was that both Yasmin and Charmaine are both used to playing goal shooter and are both very dominant players, that’s still work in progress, but when they get it right I think their movement is outstanding. 
Last night I thought Pamela played very well with Yasmin to start with, we think that we need more than one combination, we’ve got to keep growing and developing the ability to change out there.

Quote from Captain
Micky Lin, Singapore Captain
We’ve been trying to create opportunities outside the circle, there were some, but as we turned over and brought the ball down but our handling let to mistakes that sent the ball my way again. We need to tidy up and see what we can do about it. 
The coaches put in a few combinations to try and work out which combinations work best, honestly I think if we tidied things up it would have been a lot closer.