AFTER three decades, the revolving trophy is now in their backyard.
The College of Nursing survived a nerve-wracking clincher round against powerhouse Faculty of Engineering to grab its first-ever Pautakan team title in 31 years last March 3 at the Medicine Auditorium.
“It’s surreal,” said graduating team captain Gabriel Fernandez, whose seven-man squad bested Engineering with a narrow 140.004-140.003 victory following consecutive checks on History, UST History and General Information. “It’s unbelievable; we didn’t believe we would make it.”
Nursing copped the haymaker question in math to break away with a .001-point edge and bag the college’s first title in the country’s longest running inter-collegiate quiz contest.
Nursing, along with runner-up Engineering, actually made it to the tie-break period by overtaking erstwhile elimination-round front-runner Alfredo M. Velayo College of Accountancy in the waning moments of the difficult round. Accountancy eventually finished third with 130 points.
The colleges of Science and Pharmacy completed the Final Five with 90 and 50 points, respectively.
“I guess our being underdogs played a part in this title run,” Fernandez said of his squad which entered the finals against established Pautakan heavyweights like five-peat titlists Faculty of Arts and Letters and last year’s champion Faculty of Medicine And Surgery. “Being humble enables one to see his weaknesses, which helped us to strive even more for this contest.”
Meanwhile, AB-BSE junior Jerome Ordillano made up for his team’s lowly seventh-place finish,winning the Individual Category with a come-from-behind 120-point victory over Engineering’s Rhovee Vistan, who wound up second with 100 points.
Alexis Laforteza of Medicine and Surgery settled for third after tallying 70 points.
“I was starting to doubt my chances midway through the quiz, but when the questions in the difficult round focused on my forte, I knew I had a chance to win it all,” said Ordillano.
The solo race first-timer raked in 45 points in the final round, including consecutive goals on the last two History questions, enabling him to snatch the title from Vistan.
Faculty of Arts and Letters Prof. Rogelio Obusan was recognized for his 26th year as Pautakan resource person. Obusan, who is set to retire this year, is the perennial the resource person for the UST History category.
