PRISAA 2007: Central Visayas stalks Western Visayas

ILOILO CITY — The Central Visayas team is still trailing host and defending champion Western Visayas in the race for the overall supremacy in the 2007 National Private Schools Athletic Association (PRISAA) meet in various venues here.

Central Visayas ended Day 4 with 30 gold, 41 silver and 28 bronze medals to maintain its hold of the second spot as Western Visayas paced the multi-event conclave with 46 gold, 30 silver and 19 bronze medals.

At third place is Southern Mindanao with 23 gold, 12 silver and 24 bronze medals and Bicol Region is at fourth with five golds, four silvers and a bronze medal.

Completing the top five teams is Southern Tagalog (Calabarzon) with four gold, nine silver and 22 bronze medals.

The swimming, track and field, and table tennis teams are taking the cudgels for Central Visayas as they ran away with gold medals to steer Region VII to second place after the fourth day of the competition participated by college students from all over the Philippines.

Swimming

Swimming ended its campaign yesterday with 12 gold, 28 silver and 18 bronze medals.

Yesterday, they grabbed four more gold medals courtesy of the women’s 4x200-meter relay with a time of 10 minutes and 57.80 seconds.

The members of the team are Katrina Rubi, Maribeth Ababon, Ainee Cobrador and Kruzette Solijon.

They also had silver medals in the 4x100m individual medley relay for both men and women, 400m freestyle from Cobrador and 50m breaststroke from Lorhiz Echavez.

Haywell Ramacho contributed a bronze after finishing third in the 50m butterfly.

Track And Field

Track and field, under Nathaniel Villasor of University of Cebu, ran away with six gold medals yesterday.

They stamped their class in the premier men’s 4x100m relay, winning the gold medal behind the efforts of Anthony Santillan, Timoteo Margaha III, Arsenio Codilla and Jorge Pinanonang, who also won the gold medal in the 400m sprint.

Harren Melendez, for his part, dominated the 110m hurdles.

Silver medals were contributed by Leo Abello of Southwestern University in the 5K walk, Mendel Lopez in the 5,000m and Sarah Angela Siocon in triple jump.

The bronze medallists were Eugene Delposo and Mary Rose Arman (5,000m) and Siocon in long jump.

Grandslam For Table Tennis

The table tennis team also was at the top of their form to score a grand slam in the men’s division.

Michael Motel, Jay Impuesto, Jonathan Jacalan and Glendo Nayre defeated University of the East, representing the National Capital Region.

The women’s team settled for bronze behind Gloria Belandres, Mary Grace Motel, Catherine Cañete, Sherry Mae and Mary Christine Ba-ay.

Lawn Tennis

Floreza Alesna and Rachel Idos defeated bets from Western Visayas, 8-1, to contribute two gold medals to the team as Benebeth Patindol bowed to a netter from Southern Tagalog to settle for silver in the women’s singles division.

Taekwondo

The jins of coaches Raul Luna and Manny Bula managed to grab a gold, three silvers and a bronze medal.

Jennifer Villar topped the competition in the middleweight division while the silver medal winners were Erman Bucao (lightweight), Weson Ramoneda (pin weight) and Epreleine Salo (bantamweight).

The bronze medallist was Kerwin Dumapias in the middleweight category.

Badminton

Solito Flores, the only veteran left in the team, lead Central Visayas to a bronze medal finish in the team event.

Other Events

Already assured of a stint in the semifinal round are the sepak takraw team, represented by Southwestern University, the women’s basketball squad and the men’s volleyball.