NATIONALSPORTS www.fi jitimes.com.fj

THAILAND, AP - Top-seeded Peng Shuai of China has fallen to Japan’s Misaki Doi 6-3 2-6 6-2 in the second round of the Thailand Open. Doi, in their fi rst meeting, handed Peng her earliest loss in Pattaya on Wednesday. Peng had reached at least the quarter-fi nals in four previous appearances.

MADRID, AFP - Barcelona took a huge step towards their fi fth Copa del Rey fi nal in seven years with a 3-1 win over Villarreal in the fi rst leg of their semi-fi nal yesterday. Lionel Messi opened the scoring from Luis Suarez’s cutback four minutes before the break, but Villarreal levelled shortly after half-time when Marc-Andre Ter Stegen failed to keep out Manu Trigueros’s drive. Barca were back in front within a minute through Andres Iniesta and Gerard Pique’s header.

Shuai falls Victory for Barcelona CANBERRA, AAP - The Brumbies will boast the equal tallest player in Super Rugby history when lock Rory Arnold plays against the Queensland Reds in Canberra tonight. The Wagga-born behemoth will share the Super Rugby record with South African Andries Bekker.

Arnold to start

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44 THE FIJI TIMES —FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2015

Adi Cakobau completes inter-house competition in Suva THE girls from Sawani, Adi Ca-kobau School, held their inter-house meet yesterday and the times and distances attained had the coaches smiling.

Next obstacle for the once schools athletics champions will be the NNN Zone, but the focus is

always on the Coca-Cola Games.ACS which claimed 10 titles in

a row, lost their grip on the girls’ division in 2013 and since then has not won the title back.

Lautoka’s Jasper Williams, who became surprise winners that year, defended their title suc-cessfully last year.

Head coach Bereti Laqere said

the girls had prepared for the in-ter-house with the mind-set that they were champions.

“Yes, the pressure is there but if we prepare like we are champions then we would perform like cham-pions,” she said.

“The school teaches the girls to excel in anything they do, be it sports or education and that is

what we believe is the difference.“The school has a roll of 680

and the number of students par-ticipating today (yesterday) is around 400. So you can see the determination and the pride the girls have.”

Laqere added the outcome on the fi eld was a team effort where both coaches and athletes worked

hard together to bring in the re-sults.

She said in this year’s Coke Games, ACS will be fi elding as many athletes as possible in all disciplines in track and fi eld.

Last year ACS fi nished off with 7 gold, 10 silver and 4 bronze in comparison to Jasper’s 10 gold, 6 silver and 4 bronze.

ACS athletes in action during the school’s inter-house meet at the ANZ Stadium yesterday. Picture: JOVESA NAISUA

BoostforRaiwaiRAIWAI Volleyball Asso-ciation (RVA) has received a timely boost in the lead- up to the Vanua Challenge which will be held at the end of this month.

The association received support from RC Manubhai for the 2014-2015 season.

The company had sup-ported the association in 2008 and 2009.

RVA president Jona Nay-acatini said the support from RC Manubhai would foster the growth and the development of sports in the country and also with-in the community.

“RC Manubhai is a well renowned company in the country and we hope to be the fi rst sporting team (predominantly) volley-ball to tap into their great sponsorship.

“Their support towards our humble efforts is in a way a contribution to the rehabilitation and develop-ment of our youths,” Naya-catini said.

“In sponsoring our as-sociation, R C Manubhaiwould be backing one of the most successful volleyball teams in the country dat-ing back to 1970’s.”

Nayacatini said the sup-port was timely as the as-sociation was working to-wards getting back into winning ways.

“The groundwork for the successful return to win-ning ways has already been set with the return of six national representatives to the recent tour of Can-berra.

“We do look forward to building a long lasting re-lation with our sponsors.”

By RASHNEEL KUMAR

By SHALVEEN CHAND

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