Tag: No. 1

SEVERAL months before the UAAP baseball hostilities will resume, the UST Golden Sox have the daunting task of polishing their competitive edge despite the absence of tough adversaries.

Newly-appointed UST baseball team head coach Jeffrey Santiago hopes to remedy this dilemma as the Sox keep their wares in check for the 12th Philippine Amateur Baseball Association (PABA) Presidential Cup.

?Kailangan ma-expose ang mga bata sa laro,? said the former UST softball head coach.

TOTAL domination!

The UST Lady jins were not slowed down by the absence of their head coach and core players as they seized four of five gold medals staked in the 2001 Milo All-Women?s Taekwondo Championships last June 24 at the Ninoy Aquino Stadium.
Tiger jins mentor Dindo Simpao, RP team mainstays Daleen Cordero and Kalindi Tamayo, and Tigress sophomore Richelle de Rueda missed the competition since they were set to carry the colors of the nation in the Korean Open which started last June 25 and lasts up to July 7.

UST TAEKWONDO sensation Tshomlee Go added another accolade to his illustrious career when he won the silver medal in the recently concluded World Cup Taekwondo 2001 championships in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

Carrying the national colors as part of the Petron Philippine team, Go, a 20-year old UST Education sophomore, demolished his hapless foes before bowing to the assault of a more experienced Korean rival in the flyweight finals of the world?s most prestigious taekwondo competition.

WILL PIDO and company shed tears of joy in Season 71?

The heartbreaking image of the Growling Tigers’ mentor and his wards after being eliminated by the Ateneo de Manila Blue Eagles last year could just be a brief interlude toward earning another stripe of wisdom going into the grilling hour.

“That was a bad experience,” Jarencio told the Varsitarian. “We’ll make sure that it will never happen again.”

After all, the Tigers already showed much heart and composure last Season 70. Despite hitting the cellar of the team standings with two early losses, Jarencio’s pack rose from the slump and repeated its Season 69 turnaround by winning eight of their next 12 games to finish with an 8-6 win-loss card at the end of the eliminations.

The Tigers also made their presence felt in the defensive end, clawing down their opponents’ production from 80 points an outing in Season 69 to just 70 points per game last season.

But the sequel to the Cinderella run was cut short right at its climax by Ateneo, the same team that the Tigers pulverized in the best-of-three Season 69 finals.

EAGER to reclaim the title the Tigers lost last season, coach Pido Jarencio now brings in a pack of raw yet promising greenhorns at the start of Season 71. More than just backstopping their seasoned comrades, rookies Clark Bautista, Emilian Vargas, Jeric Fortuna, Carmelo Afuang, Christopher Camus, Carlos Fenequito, Jackson Wong, and Allein Gail Maliksi are raring to parade their individual arsenals against the fiercest hardcourt batallions assembled for this year’s UAAP cage wars.

OUTGROWING a failed back-to-back title test, the UST Tigresses could have just easily dispatched the harrowing lessons of Season 70 as mere footnotes in its newly devised basketball workbook.

But a lesson, good or bad, enriches experience, a weapon the Peque Tan-mentored squad gamely recognizes.

HOBBLED by the untimely exit of key player Remia Buenacosa, the UST Tigresses surrendered to pressure and crumbled before a towering Adamson University squad, 61-73, in the finals of the 2008 Nike Summer League last June 13 at the Philippine Sports Arena.

“They were just tired, I guess,” Coach Peque Tan told the Varsitarian. “That explained why they came out lifeless by the second half of the game.”

SHE HURDLED every roadblock but the last.

Season 70 Most Valuable Player Rose Anne de la Cruz may have rampaged through a crowd of lightweights en route to booking a finals ticket in the Dunlop Open women’s badminton tournament.

But dominating a seasoned member of the national team proved unlikely as she absorbed a clinical 19-21, 10-21 loss in the singles championship last June 6 at the Powerhouse courts in Makati.

START the year right to end it right.

In 2005, the UST Growling Tigers lost in the UAAP opener against the University of the Philippines Fighting Maroons, 66-69. Notching three second-round wins, the Tigers avoided being at the bottom of the standings but failed to enter the Final Four. That was Season 68.

FOR REFUSING to throw its aces on the quarterfinals table, the UST Tiger Cubs may have lost the card game. But not the marbles of its off-season groundwork.

Opting to play minus its starters, the Tiger Cubs ended its 2007 Nike Summer League campaign on a sour note as they suffered a 64-79 bashing from the Far Eastern University (FEU) Baby Tamaraws last May 30 at the opponent’s turf.

Tiger Cubs Coach Allan Ascue, however, explained the no-show policy he enforced on his mainstays.