THE UST Female Tracksters emerged as champions for the third straight year, while the Male Tracksters remained second anew at the UAAP Season 79 athletics tournament at the Philsports Arena last Feb. 8 to 12.
UST successfully defended its title in the women’s division with 490 points behind a 30 medal haul (11-11-8 gold-silver-bronze), leaving Far Eastern University (401 points) and the University of the Philippines (165 points) at second and third place, respectively.
Head coach Emmanuel Calipes lauded his wards’ impressive performance despite some key losses from their previous roster.
“This group is much closer than before. Although some players left, I said, ‘We need to step up.’ I am happy because of the women’s dominance,” Calipes told the Varsitarian.
The Female Tracksters ruled the 4×1000-meter relay, 200, 400, 1500 and 10000-meter run, hammer throw, long jump, pole vault and heptathlon events.
Dynasty
The Male Tracksters once again failed to dethrone the reigning FEU Charging Tamaraws, the seven-time defending champions.
UST’s 244 points in the men’s division courtesy of its 16 medals (4-5-7 gold-silver-bronze tally) was enough to secure second place against third placers De La Salle University with 243 points. The Tamaraws made a statement with 404 points.
Despite the absence of perennial gold medalist Elbren Neri, the Male Tracksters pocketed four gold medals in the pole vault, 110-meter hurdle, 1000 and 5000-meter walk events courtesy of EJ Obiena and Lambert Padua.
Calipes said the Male Tracksters performed well but lacked manpower.
“If you look at the other teams, they were complete. We even lost our best player (Neri) and that is a big deal,” Calipes added.
Male Tracksters paraded only 16 players, missing four potential slots for the whole team.
Neri, who holds the record in the 1,500-meter run from last season, decided to forego this season to focus on the national team and the Southeast Asian Games.
Making new records
Obiena set a new record of 14.39 seconds in the men’s 110-meter hurdles, trouncing his 14.47-second performance in 2014.
Female Trackster Luz Delfin also entered the record books with a 41.88-meter performance in the women’s hammer throw event.
Surpassing the previous record of 4,507 points, Sarah Dequinan capped the women’s team dominant run with a brand new UAAP record of 5,094 points in women’s heptathlon — a display that ranks fourth all-time among Filipina heptathletes.
With this record, Dequinan joined the great Elma Muros-Pasadas, who holds the national record of 5,346 points, her coach Narcissa Atienza (5,285 points), and former SEA Games heptathlon champion Nene Gamo-Pellosis (5,125 points) as the only Filipinas who breached the 5000-point mark.
Judy Almasa, also broke the UAAP women’s heptathlon record by garnering 4,840 points for silver.
Louielyn Pamatian was hailed Most Valuable Player in the women’s division after collecting gold medals in the 4×400-meter relay and the 800 and 1500-meter run. She added silver in the 400-meter sprint.
“I did not expect that I would get the MVP award because I have a lot of opponents who were strong,” Pamatian said. “[But] I expected that we will get the championship since each of us contributed points and we were not careless in our respective events.”
FEU remains the winningest team in UAAP athletics history with 49 titles under its belt while UST now has 15 championships overall.
