Ranola crowns self pool queen, keys 4-gold run

PALEMBANG – Iris Ranola stepped out of the shadows of former 8-ball, 9-ball and 10-ball champion Rubilen Amit, while Team Philippines’ elderly – a select group of professionals with a penchant for math and logic – pulled off a 1-2 punch in bridge in the 26th Southeast Asian Games.

Ranola outclassed Amit, the 2009 SEA Games double gold medalist, 7-2, in an all-Filipino final yesterday to become the new 8-ball and 9-ball queen and cap the Filipino cue artists’ campaign with a third gold against two silvers and one bronze as the Filpinos capped the day with four golds.

Francisco Sainz, 54, and Gemma Mariano, 58, won the gold in the mixed butler event while medical practitioner George Soo and Mylene Encontro, 26, a UP math graduate who is pursuing her master’s degree in math in Sweden, finished with the silver in an outstanding performance in the mind game of bridge introduced for the first time in the biennial meet.

Veteran Nancy Quillotes joined the gold medal circle of the day by outpointing Indonesian Tery Kursunawadan, 1-0, in the 45 kg final in judo.

Earl BenjaminYap, Rosendo Sombrio, Jose Ferdinand Adriano, and youthful Delfin Anthony Adriano teamed up to topple powerhouse Indonesia to win the gold in team compound event of archery.

However, the modest gold medal haul which increased the Philippine tally to 19-34-39 gold-silver-bronze medals hardly helped the Filipinos’ bid for a decent fifth place as Singapore remained solid at that position with a 30-35-53 count.

The gap between first and second also widened as Indonesia neared the century mark (98-74-74) leaving Vietnam at far second (66-64-62). Thailand remained close at third with 62-54-67.

Malaysia (35-31-49) is also now being threatened by Singapore, but the Philippines is still right in the middle of the standings.

It was again a day of near misses for other Filipino athletes in Jakarta and West Java.

Rider Mark Galedo and the rowing pair of Benjie Tolentino and Jose Roriguez settled for silver while golfer Dottie Ardina, the bowling trios of Biboy Rivera, Frederick Ong and Raoul Miranda, and the Philippine women’s saber team consoled themselves with bronze.

The Phl lady bowlers remained empty-handed with the trios of Daisy Posadas, Marian Posadas and M. Del Rosario faring no better than seventh.

The Philippine women’s saber squad narrowly missed the finals, suffering a heartbreaking 25-26 semifinal loss to Vietnam to end up with a bronze at the University of Indonesia multi-purpose hall in Depok.

Down 22-24, Filipina fencers Madel Galvez, Harlene Orendain and Michelle Bruzola gamely fought back to tie the score at 24 and 25-all, and had “priority” over their rivals in the one-minute extension period.

“Because we had ‘priority’ in the extension, this meant that if Vietnam wasn’t able to score in one minute then we would advance to the finals,” explained coach Orly Viscayno. “Unfortunately, it did not happen.”

Bruzela, the 2007 Thailand SEA Games saber gold medalist, met Tran Thri Len in the crucial faceoff, and, with just a few seconds left in overtime, the Vietnamese went on an all-out attack and managed to hit the Filipina’s body to clinch her team’s ticket to the finals.

The men’s foil team of Emerson Segui, Rolando Canlas Jr. and Mark Denver Atienza absorbed a close 42-45 quarterfinal loss to   fight Indonesia for second last night in the round-robin elimination, with a win giving the Filipinos (2-1), the traditional second placers,  the outright silver and  Singapore (3-0), the traditional champion, the gold medal.