Pagulayan, Orcullo bag 9-ball gold

The Philippines continued to stamp its class in billiards as the tandem of Alex Pagulayan and Dennis Orcullo trounced Nguyen Thahn Han and Luong Chi Dung of Vietnam, 11-5, to bag the 9-ball doubles crown in the 23rd Southeast Games at the Makati Coliseum

The Filipino cue masters took the initiative early, 4-2, and never relinquished it en route to the runaway victory in the race-to-11 event, the hosts’ fifth in seven final appearances.

"We’re lucky today. We had great shots but we were up against tough opponents because the two Vietanmese are the best in their country," said Pagulayan.

"But things are different when you’re in the tournament. When we made remarkable shots, they began to feel the pressure,"added Pagulayan, member of the snooker team that won gold a few days back.

The Vietnamese, bronze medalists in the same event when Vietnam hosted the biennial meet two years ago, were in the game only in the first frame.

The win was a big relief for Pagulayan and Orcullo, who in the semifinals, had to rely on sheer luck to complete a big comeback and post a stirring 11-9 victory over a surprisingly tough Singaporean pair of Toh Lian Ham and Chan Keng Kwan.

The Filipinos, who only won two golds, including this event, in Vietnam in 2003, trailed at 4-8 in the semis when they could not get their rhythm in the face of a determined challenge by the Singaporean.

But the Singaporean sputtered, enabling the local bets to even things up and snatch the win.

Two of the local bets in men’s English Billiard singles bowed out of contention in the preliminaries.

Reynaldo Grandea, a bronze medalist in 3-cushion carom singles during the last edition, lost to Indonesia’s Hasan Manfaluti, 0-3, while Luis Saberdo fell to Malaysia’s Roslan Yumalis, 2-3.