Tag: Vol. LXXIX No. 2

THE UST Tigresses are riding on a three-game winning streak after a break-even take-off in the initial stage of their title-retention bid in Season 70, posting four wins in six games.

“We will not let our next opponents beat us,” coach Peque Tan told the Varsitarian, after a relatively dismal start in the elimination round.

True enough, the Tigresses regained their winning form, outclassing the De La Salle University Lady Archers in the endgame, 72-65, last August 4 at the Adamson gym, to fuel a three-game winning sprint.

AWARE of the upset factor in a prolonged championship series, the UST Lady Spikers recalled their top guns from sickbay to finally dispatch the San Sebastian College Lady Stags and claim their second Shakey’s V-League title in three years last July 3 at The Arena in San Juan.

Finals Most Valuable Player (MVP) and best attacker Mary Jean Balse endured feverish conditions, along with guest player Suzanne Roces, to spearhead the Lady Spikers’ 25-14, 25-19, 17-25, 25-13 conquest of the Lady Stags in Game 2 for an impressive 8-3 win-loss card at the end of the tournament.

IN A DAY that saw its UAAP rivals ambush others on the tracks, the UST Tiger Jins-Gold banked on its old reliables to escape the upset axe and rule the senior men’s advance category of the 30th Petron National Taekwondo Championships last July 28 and 29 at the Rizal Memorial Coliseum.

Season 69 MVP Billy Coral, Jurrie Bernardino and Marlon Avenido teamed up with Olympian Tshomlee Go and former team captain Alexander Briones to help UST-Gold post a nail-biting 3-2 finals victory against a stubborn Delta Gold-La Salle crew.

SO FAR, so good.

Wearing the lethal gameface that catapulted them back to the UAAP summit last season, the UST Golden Booters opened their 5th Ang Liga Football Cup campaign on a high note, registering a 4-0-3 win-loss-draw card halfway into the first round.

The Season 69 UAAP champions, which finished fourth in last year’s Ang Liga edition, carved an impressive 4.75-per cent winning margin to take its first four victories in lopsided fashion.

SHE practically owns the best front-row seat that most UAAP basketball fans would never have.

But more than watching the Tigers from the sidelines, Accountancy junior Dianne Carmella Querrer will sit beside the UST bench as its new courtside reporter for Season 70, replacing last season’s correspondent, Donna Belle Llabres.

FOR ALL its countless victories in the UAAP warfront, the University did more than just embrace a 70-year-old culture of athletic virtuosity on the seventh day of the seventh month in the seventh year of the millennium.

Celebrating the seventh decade of the country’s premier collegiate league, UST showcased what Thomasian artistic excellence is all about as it opened the UAAP’s 70th season with aplomb inspired by the theme “Winners All: Recreating the Value of Honesty through Sports” last July 7 at the Araneta Coliseum.

NOT EVEN its vaunted on-court ferocity could lift the UST Tiger Cubs from the mire of disappointment as they continue to struggle in the UAAP Juniors Basketball wars.

The Tiger Cubs, who finished fifth in Season 69, nearly barged into the win column but waffled at crunch time anew to yield a 68-73 loss against the Adamson University Baby Falcons last July 28 at the opponent’s turf.

Late into the fourth quarter, the Tiger Cubs looked poised to notch their first win after leading by one, 65-66, with less than four minutes remaining.

BEHOLD, the Thomasian juggernaut has finally arrived.

Armed on the hardcourt with everything but the word “surrender,” the UST

Growling Tigers snatched the “heavyweight” tags right under the noses of the league’s top-billed squads to jumpstart their UAAP Final Four campaign on a bright note.

“The boys just showed them what the word ‘champion’ means,” coach Pido Jarencio told the Varsitarian. “I told them that as long as there’s still time, we must continue to fight,” he said in Filipino.