Malaysia chalked up a convincing 67-33 win over arch-rivals Singapore to finish the round-robin competition undefeated.
Malaysia had earlier beaten hosts Brunei 76-14 and Thailand 64-17.
Singapore settled for silver while Thailand got the bronze after beating Brunei 45-20.
Fourteen-year-old Adam Arif Madzri won Malaysia’s only medal in golf after taking bronze in the boys’ individual competition.
Adam’s four-day total of 23-over 311 saw him finish third out of 26 golfers in the Under-18 field.
Thailand’s Chonjarern Baramithanaseth took silver with a 19-over 307 total while Indonesian Almay Rayhan Yagutah won gold with an eight-over 296 total.
Indonesia, who bagged six out of the 10 gold medals in pencak silat, took the overall title with a haul of 25-24-10.
Malaysia finished second overall with a 20-14-22 haul.
Athletics contributed nine gold medals – the most – towards Malaysia’s final medal count, which was made more memorable by Badrul Hisham Abdul Manap’s success in smashing the 17-year-old men’s national 100m record.
The 18-year-old became the country’s newest sprint sensation after clocking a sizzling 10.29 to erase the old mark of 10.30 held by Sarawakian Watson Nyambek since 1998.
Swimming contributed eight gold medals, with Welson Sim raking in four – the biggest individual haul – from 100m freestyle, 200m freestyle, 400m freestyle and 4x100m freestyle relay.
Besides netball, Malaysia also won two gold medals in badminton.
Malaysian contingent chief Zainuren Mohd Nor said there were fewer sports compared to the previous edition in the Philippines last year. “We had 12 sports last year in the Philippines, but this time there were only seven sports contested. We missed out on a few targeted golds in athletics and badminton,” he said.
