Malditas whip Laotians in Asean tiff

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine Malditas unleashed their full offensive might to crush Laos, 7-2, and cap their campaign in the Asean Football Federation Women’s championship group stages on a high note at Aung San Stadium in Myanmar Wednesday night.

Fil-Am Joana Houplin had a field day knocking down goals, scoring just 58 seconds into the game and following it up with three more connections (3’, 7’, 31’) to lead the Malditas to the fiery victory that augured well for their upcoming Southeast Asian Games campaign.

Natasha Alquiros (69’) and Sunshine Soriano (80’) rounded up scoring with Marisa Park assisting five times as the Malditas wrapped up their Group B slate with six points on 2-0-2 for third in the five-team bracket. Japan Under-23 topped the group with a perfect 12 points to tow host Myanmar (nine points on 3-0-1) into the semifinals.

“The girls played like true Malditas today. No holding back. All-out attack for 90 minutes. We could have scored more, and the girls really wanted to score more, too,” said coach Ernie Nierras.

Phl XI bounced back from two successive losses, including a 1-5 setback to the Burmese that shut the door on the Malditas’ semis aspirations.

“I know this does not make up for our loss to Myanmar, but don’t worry the SEAG is just around the corner. We already know how they play, but they have not seen the best of the Malditas yet,” Nierras said.

Houplin emerged as a candidate for the Golden Boot award with eight total goals in the tourney, leading Japanese Miyuki Takahashi (6) and Burmese Khin Moe Wai (5) after the group stages.

Overall the Phl had 15 goals, a record for the women’s team.

“This is the most we have ever scored in any competition in Philippine women’s football history. We also scored in all our matches. This team will only get better. We fell short of our goal, but we will never stop trying. SEAG is our next stop, and we want the gold,” said Nierras.