NCR retains Palaro overall title

NAGA CITY – The National Capital Region unleashed a final day surge as it ran away with the overall title in the primary and secondary levels of the 2006 Palarong Pambansa at the rain-soaked Metro Naga Sports Complex here.

Like tropical depression "Caloy," the Big City bets devastated the rest of the field, amassing 269.5 points in secondary and 275.6 in elementary to cap its domination of this annual multi-sports meet that officially concluded yesterday.

NCR scooped gold medals in secondary basketball, baseball and swimming to jump from second place behind Calabarzon in the wind-swept, rain-drenched penultimate day to clinch the overall championship for the second straight year.

Western Visayas also had a huge final day output with wins in football and softball but simply couldn’t catch up with NCR as it finished with 232 points in high school.

Calabarzon, which led going into the final day, sunk to third with 226.5 points while rounding up the top 10 were Central Visayas (132), Central Luzon (108.5), Davao (55.5), Bicol (55), Cotabato (53), Zamboanga (52.5) and Northern Mindanao (41).

Last year’s elementary overall titlist Calabarzon also faltered, finishing second with 216.5 points while Western Visayas was a distant third with 140 points.

Making the top 10 were Central Visayas (119), Davao (55), Central Luzon (52.5), Bicol (48.33), Cotabato (46.43), Northern Mindanao (39) and Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (35).

Borjie Hermida spewed 11 of his 17 points in the third quarter as the Big City dribblers surged back from a 13-point deficit in edging Western Visayas in a physical 57-53 victory to capture their second straight basketball crown at the Ateneo de Naga covered courts.

So emotional was the game that commotions from inside and outside the court ensued.

Up 56-53, with seconds to go, Hermida was hit by a wayward fist from a Western Visayan cager in a scramble for loose ball that almost caused a free-for-all before cooler heads prevailed.

The former San Beda high standout then nailed a foul shot in the dying seconds to seal the win for NCR, which also downed Western Visayas in Iloilo City last year.

Outside it, a fistfight almost broke between some rowdy supporters from both delegations but police and military personnel roaming the venue calmed everyone.

Western Visayas reigned supreme again in football as it trounced host Bicol, 3-0.

In the shortened pool event, NCR created the biggest ripples, capturing a total of 10 gold medals in the secondary level including three in the final day thanks to Matthew Tano (200-meter freestyle), Angelo Miguel Carandang (100-m breaststroke) and the 400-m freestyle relay team of Dhill Anderson Lee, Gerald Alcover, Joseph Cheng, John Mark Miranda.

NCR was more dominating in the elementary division with a 13-gold harvest, the bulk of which coming from the awesome pair of Fil-Arab Jasmine Al-Khaldi and Dorothy Grace Hong.

Al Khaldi, a 12-year International Christian Academy student, emerged the most be-medalled athlete in this annual multi-sports meet with six gold medals and a bronze while Hong, a graduate of La Salle de Araneta in Malabon, had four.

So spectacular was the pair that they were responsible for six of the seven meet records shattered at the pool.

At the end of swimming, Al-Khaldi and Hong powered the NCR tankers with 13 golds including a four-gold haul in the last day.