Tag: No. 1

WITHOUT anything to loose, the UST Growling Tigers-Team B still meant serious business.

Despite losing composure down the stretch, UST got its message across after surviving the Jose Rizal University (JRU) Heavy Bombers’ endgame scare to end the Filoil- Flying V Pre-Season Invitational Cup with a 96-92 win last June 1 at The Arena in San Juan.

RAINS may have tamed the scorching heat outside the Rizal Memorial Coliseum. But not the fired-up UST Judokas who torched the mats anew in the National Kids and Juniors Judo Championship last May 26 and 27.

Setting the battle pads ablaze with fearsome throws and pins, the España-based judokas bagged three golds, a silver, and four bronzes to underscore their reputation as one of the top college teams in the tournament.

RESILIENCY is key.

Season 69 champions UST Golden Sox lit up the charts early on before thwarting Rizal Technological University’s (RTU) forays down the stretch to sweep the two-game finals series of the 2007 Philippine Amateur Baseball Association Youth Baseball tournament via a 6-4 Game 2 victory last June 9 at the Rizal Memorial Ballpark.

Members of the UST Yellow Jackets finished third place in a dodge ball competition sponsored by I-on energy drink last April at the University of the Philippines College of Human Kinetics gym.

The team was composed of Kristoffer Safno, Eduardo Villoria, Alvis Martin Parco, Gabriel Portubal, Daryl Glenn Porillo, Ace Ponef and Jerome Cuntapay. Purple Cobras and Tangkeros, both from the De La Salle University won first and second places, respectively.

IT WAS in 1995 when the UST Tigresses last tasted a back-to-back UAAP title.

But with all the chips at their grasp, the Tigresses are poised to rewrite that 12-year-old history when they defend their crown as tournament favorites come Season 70.

Losing only three reliables in the off-season, the Tigresses, who wrapped last season’s eliminations with a league-best 9-3 win-loss card, are assured of a relatively intact line-up.

FORMER Glowing Goldies ace slotman Ed Cordero has been named the new commissioner of the UAAP basketball tournament for Season 70.

The 47-year-old Cordero was unanimously chosen over fellow Glowing Goldie and former Growling Tigers coach Aric del Rosario, to head the league’s basketball operations in a UAAP board meeting last June 15.

PIRATES are not only hooked on buried treasures nowadays.

Instead of breeding talents via a juniors program, colleges nowadays prefer raiding a rival school’s athletic farmhouse to “seize” high school standouts come graduation day and fortify their crippled line-ups.

With this alarming trend, the board of the University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) has come up with a new rule that requires high school graduates transferring to another UAAP member school to serve a one-year residency before playing in the seniors division.

IN A BATTLE of women’s basketball champions, the UST Tigresses prevailed over reigning College and Universitites Sports Association champions, Philippine College of Criminology (PCCr) Lady Enforcers, 78-58, in the finals of the 2007 Nike Summer League last June 8 at the Ninoy Aquino Stadium.

With the victory, the Tigresses erased the stigma of their lone defeat in the tournament against the same Lady Enforcers squad, who dealt them a 47-57 beating in the eliminations last May 9.

“It was our laxity on defense that caused our defeat against PCCr in the eliminations,” coach Peque Tan told the Varsitarian. “We have learned from that mistake by tightening our defense and concentrating more on their two key players (Stineli Casakit and Katrina Garcia).”

LIVING up to the standards set by the Tigers in Season 69 is not easy. But four young men are ready to take on the challenge.

Tapped to provide the basketball team with additional offensive firepower and defensive muscle, Rum Perry Scott, Francis Soriano, Hector Badua and Kashim Mirza maybe greenhorns but their basketball aptitude shows a lot of promise which the UAAP hoopdom looms to behold.

Guided by the most prying eyes in the Tiger’s lair, coach Pido Jarencio’s new boys are determined to slug it out on the hardcourt against the league’s grizzled veterans come Season 70 — hopefully to earn their stripes in the UAAP defending champion’s battle-tested rotation — and help UST fashion a glorious repeat of its Season 69 quest.

Rum Perry Scott
Jersey no. 21
5’9”
Point Guard

A WEEK before the UAAP cagewars unfurl, UST has withdrawn mainman Jojo Duncil from its Season 70 roster in what could be a major setback to the Tigers’ title-retention bid following speculations that the 2006 Finals MVP has allegedly passed a “questionable” birth certificate.

“UST believes that Jojo (Duncil) is only 24 years old and is eligible to play this season,” UST Institute of Physical Education and Athletics director Fr. Ermito de Sagon told the Varsitarian. “But we chose to pull him out of the line-up to avoid questions on the credibility of UST’s basketball games and the other UAAP sports that we are in,” he said.

It has been a month since newspaper and online journal reports raised the issue of Duncil’s eligibility after an NSO-certified birth certificate showed that he was born on Jan. 13, 1982, in contrast to the Jan. 13 1983 birth date he stated in his credentials when he suited up for the Tigers in 2002.