REIGNING UAAP champions UST Lady Paddlers showed that they are truly indomitable in the table courts after they swept the Butterfly 2007 National Table Tennis Team Championship last April 4 at the SM North EDSA Entertainment Plaza.
Banking on their relentless smashes, sophomore Cecilia Bazaar and Season 69 Rookie of the Year Cassandra Bazaar schooled their respective UST-B counterparts Kate Ilagan and Donna Catugas, 11-7, 11-8 and 11-9, 11-9 for the title.
“They (UST-B) really put up a good fight, but we really had the edge because we already went up against tougher opponents,” Commerce sophomore Cecilia Bazaar told the Varsitarian.
Earlier, the Bazaar sisters made their Philippine Women’s University opponents eat dust and coasted to a 2-0 (11-6, 11-7 and 11-9, 11-9) victory.
The Tiger Paddlers, however, fell short of duplicating their counterparts’ feat after settling for second and third places in a tournament sponsored by Metro Table Tennis League.
In men’s singles, both Michael Paña and rookie Cristian Vicente of UST-B suffered heartbreaking 0-2 losses to their Metro Manila College (MMC)-A rivals in the finals.
Vicente committed successive service errors that handed the victory to MMC’s Jaime Navarro, 1-2, while Paña also committed the same miscue as he bowed to MMC’s Renz Viray, 2-3 (11-13, 8-11, 11-6, 16-11), with three consecutive errors on the receiving end.
Earlier, UST-B’s Vicente and Paña humbled UST-A’s Aaron Morales and Reygea Rosales, 2-1, for a finals berth.
In other semifinals action, Paña and Vicente carved a hard-fought 3-2 win against UST-A’s Morales and Rosales.
