Manzano-Almaden tops Petron volley

PUERTO PRINCESA , Philippines  – De La Salle-Dasmariñas’ Jennifer Manzano turned tragedy into triumph as she and partner April Almaden won the 2009 Petron Ladies’ Beach Volleyball Tournament’s 4th and final leg in masterful fashion at the jampacked Baywalk here.

Almaden and Manzano, the third-leg champions, crushed their fatigued schoolmates Wensh Tiu and Regina Tungol in the one-game, one-sided finale, 21-11, to crown themselves beach volley queens of this extravaganza backed by Petron, Speedo, Mikasa and the City of Puerto Princesa.

With her family’s home in Balangobong, Lingayen, Pangasinan still submerged in flood waters, Manzano, in particular, was all too fired up in the championship game, where she vented all of her frustrations on the hapless pair of Tiu and Tungol.

“I could not get them (her family) out of my mind. All throughout the game, I was thinking of them. This win is for them. At least, I got to see a positive side in my life, however little for the moment,” said the teary-eyed Criminology student, who added that the prize money she earned will go a long way in their efforts to rehabilitate their house once the waters subside.

So overpowering was Manzano, that she scored seven straight service winners to turn a 1-1 standoff into an 8-1 advantage over the burned-out tandem of Tiu and Tungol.

, who had to play three straight games on the way to the finals, including a 21-16 clipping of University of the Philippines’ Pau Genido and Amanda Isada in the semifinals. Almaden took it from there, coming through with three kills that gave her team a 12-3 edge.

“Pagod na, hindi ko na magalaw ang paa ko,” admitted Tungol. “But they deserved to win, they were just dominant tonight.”

The holding of the Petron volleyball circuit’s final leg, dubbed the Battle of the Champions coincided with Mayor Edward Hagedorn’s birthday celebration and was part of the city’s thrust as a top sports tourism destination in the country. It also aims to promote Puerto Princesa’s Subterranean Underground River as a world heritage site and one of the finalists in the global search for the New 7 Wonders of Nature.

The Manzano-Almaden duo clinched an outright championship seat after staying unscathed in the elimination-round, where two losses meant automatic elimination.

The tall Lady Patriots tandem bulldozed its way to the finals following wins over their schoolmates Precious Grace Abano and Satchel Cenupe, 21-19; and then over Tiu and Tungol, 21-19, and finally against UP’s Genido and Isada, 21-14.

“Jennifer and April deserve their new title as volley queens of the Petron circuit. I have never seen such an amazing display of power in a championship game at that in the past seven years that we’re staging the tournament,” said organizer Tisha Abundo, a former Commissioner of the Philippine Sports Commission.