Tag: No. 5

IN A PREVIEW of last season’s finals, the UST Lady Spikers repeated over the San Sebastioan College (SSC), 21-25, 25-19, 25-9, 25-16, to share leadership honors with the Lady Stags at the close of the 4th Shakey’s V-League second conference eliminations last November 12 at The Arena in San Juan.

Rebounding from a tight first set, the Lady Spikers mounted a trouble-free comeback as veterans Venus Bernal and Mary Jean Balse stepped up, alternately puncturing the Lady Stags’ wobbly defense with an array of cross-court and quick kills throughout the match.

Bernal and Balse finished with 18 and 16 points, respectively, offsetting Thai import Jaroensri Bualee’s 20-point explosion to catapult UST atop the leader board with a 6-1 win-loss card, the same record held by the Lady Stags at the end of the elimination round.

AGAIN, the numbers have spoken.

Following an arduous first-semester campaign, UST once more is perched comfortably atop the UAAP general championship ladder, capturing four titles and three runner-up finishes along the way for a commanding 154 point-aggregate.

Stalking the “ten-peat” UAAP overall titlists is the University of the Philippines (UP) with 126 points for second place while Far Eastern University (FEU) was a distant third with 117 markers.

Epitomizing UST’s supremacy were the men’s table tennis team and the women’s chess teams who struck gold in their respective events. Also finishing first were the women’s taekwondo and swimming squads.

UST juggernaut

DOMINATION.

Leaving behind the stigma of their Season 69 finals defeat, the UST Lady Booters mauled all opposition to stay unscathed in their 7th Metro Manila Girls Football Association campaign.

The Season 69 bridesmaids carved out an impressive 6.6 percent average winning margin to get to a 4-0-1 win-loss-draw record in the tournament.

Parading their UAAP game-face in imposing fashion, the Lady Booters blanked the Ateneo de Manila, 2-0, last October 14 at the De La Salle-Zobel football field.

Hounded by the Ateneo’s tight first half marking, Lady Booter Mary Ignacio reaped payback in the opening minute of the second half, uncorking a powerful strike to put the Lady Booters on top, 1-0.

A moment later in the 47th minute, Ignacio slotted home a second goal off an assist by Patricia Perlas.

THE SWASHBUCKLING UST Male Fencers struck a pose in time for the coming UAAP wars, carving a bridesmaid finish in the Interclub Fencing Competition last September 28 at the SM Megamall in Ortigas.

“This is only part of our training in preparation for the coming UAAP season,” coach Bienvenido Orlanes told the Varsitarian.

Despite absorbing a 50-60 loss to Season 69 champion University of the East (UE) Red Skirts, the Male Fencers carried out a show as they struck their way to an early nine-point binge, 15-6.

However, UE fencer Bonifacio Jacintos slashed UST’s lead to only 19-20, altering the complexion of the match in favor of the Red Skirts. From a 43-45 margin halfway into the bout, UE banked on the prolific Jacintos exploits in the 10th round en route to a decisive 44-50 upperhand for the gold.

WHISKED away from active play after a five-month suspension for alleged game-fixing, International Master Darwin Laylo’s blooming chess career looked headed to the doldrums.

But the 2004 National Open champion hardly sank in career dormancy, underscoring his return with an impressive finish at the Sixth Asian Individual Chess Championship last September 27 to become the Philippines’ seventh Grandmaster (GM).

“It was good karma,” Laylo said in an interview with the Varsitarian. “Winning the championship was a chance to prove myself against my accusers and represent the country at the same time.”

FIRST-BOUT jitters may have spoiled his Olympic debut three years ago.

However, the Athenian tragedy that had befuddled him and his compatriots hardly doused the fire of redemption in Thomasian jin Tshomlee Go as he secured a trip to the 2008 Beijing Olympics after placing third in the -49 kilogram division of the World Olympic Taekwondo Qualifying Games last September 28-30 in Manchester, England.

“This is a second-chance opportunity for me,” said Go. “I am going to be a more mature fighter than I was back then, and I think that will make all the difference,” he added.

The 26-year-old Go trounced Egypt’s Tamer Salah Bayoumi via superiority in his sixth and final match to bag the last qualifying slot in the 48-man knockout eliminations.

AFTER 11 years, a Tiger is once again king of the UAAP basketball hill.

Following a remarkable year in which he imposed total domination in the shaded lane offensively and defensively, UST stalwart Jervy Cruz was named Most Valuable Player of Season 70 last October 7 at the Araneta Coliseum.

The last Tiger to win the MVP trophy was Christopher Cantonjos of the fabled “four-peat” UST team, who led the black-gold-and-white to a 57-54 victory against La Salle in what became the last of four straight titles in 1996.

Cruz was also named PS Bank “Maasahan Player of the Year” and a member of the Mythical Five.

The MVP plum, however, was bittersweet for the 21-year-old Nueva Ecija native following the Tigers’ premature exit in the step-ladder semifinal series of the tournament.

“I am very happy that I was named the MVP,” Cruz told the Varsitarian. “Unfortunately, we were not able to bring another title to UST.”

IT WAS the last two minutes of the ballgame.

Cold sweat dripped from UST Tiger Dylan Ababou’s yellow jersey. He looked at the clock and realized that they could be two minutes away from victory or from being dethroned. Then he made a three-pointer that trimmed the lead down to only five points, 65-60. That seemed to have been the lift they badly needed.

But no matter how hard Dylan and his teammates tried to close in and keep their back-to-back championship hopes alive, it wasn’t enough. The buzzer had already sounded.

Girding for ‘vengeance’

GUT FEEL hardly affirmed UST judo coach Jojo Arce’s pre-war insights in the past. But the proverbial breaks of the game have a way of shelving this petty contradiction for the veteran mentor and his highly touted army.

True to his off-season hunch, Arce’s wards fell short of reasserting their brilliance on the mat as the Tiger and Lady Judokas slipped a notch lower from their Season 69 billings, ending up second and third in the UAAP judo tournament last October 6 and 7 at the Blue Eagle Gym.

The defending champion Tiger Judokas amassed 34 points, a far cry from arch-nemesis University of the Philippines’ (UP) 43-point heave en route to reclaiming the title which the España-based crew won by a whisker in Season 69. Comebacking De La Salle University finished third with 32 overall markers.

UP and La Salle finished first and second, respectively in the women’s division.

FATE-switching typified the UST Paddlers’ latest drive on the table-courts as the Tiger Paddlers heaped vengeance over their Season 69 tormentors amid their female counterparts’ foiled title-retention bid.

One year after falling short of a ‘five-peat’, the Tiger Paddlers breathed resiliency toward the end, to dethrone perennial rivals and last season’s victors Far Eastern University (FEU), 3-2, in a nerve-wracking championship rematch last Sept. 26 at the Ateneo Blue Eagle gym.

“I was not able to sleep well for several days because of the competition’s pressure,” coach Henberd Ortalla told the Varsitarian. “But now, the feeling is awesome after we proved once again that UST is the home of the champions.”

The Tiger Paddlers drew first blood in the race-to-three championship series as team captain Glen Rodriguez swept Green and Gold Paddler Michael Breva, 11-9, 11-9, 11-7.