THE heroic national softball team arrived at the Brunei International Airport last night. They returned as champions of the 2008 Malaysian Intranational Open after thrashing Penang Vipers 10-0 during the final."This is indeed a great achievement and now Malaysia knows that we mean business and take softball very seriously,"

Brunei Amateur Softball and Baseball Association (Basba) Secretary General Maj (Rtd) Wan Mohd Tambrin Shah said."After this win we feel we need to aim higher, the plan is to make an impact in the Asia and ASEAN softball scene and that is most likely to happen next year," he added.Before leaving for the four-day tournament that started last Thursday, Wan Mohd Tambrin had said that he was aiming to use the tournament to prove that the sport could bring glory to the country.

"We really hit the ball during the tournament. Our batting was what won us the game and we knew we had to work on that because it had been one of our weaknesses." The Vice President of Basba, Pg Hj Jambul Pg Hj Sulaiman said that the team was not confident when they left as they had little time to practice over the fasting month but they still won."We have proved to ourselves that we are a strong team even with a low confidence level, given more time to practice we are sure to achieve something in the future," Pg Hj Jambul said. "We thank the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports for giving us the approval to participate in this tournament, we hope for their continuous support in the future," he added.

*Taken from The Brunei Times*