SINGAPORE, June 11 (PNA)– Softball emerged as the only other sports association that so far swept the gold medals offered in the 28th Southeast Asian Games.
And the Blu Boys and Blu Girls pulled it off without any overseas training.
“We just trained at the Rizal Memorial diamond after we came home from Incheon [17th Asian Games] last year,” said Ana Santiago, coach of the women’s team that had 10 holdovers and one new Filipino-American player for the Singapore Sea Games.
“But we were expected to win and we played our best so as not to disappoint,” added Santiago, who said the Blu Girls are now focused on the Asia-Paficic qualifiers in Guam for the World Series of softball.
The Philippines swept the softball competitions. Except for their 10-8 come-from-behind victory over Indonesia, the Blu Boys won all their matches via routs—11-5 over Singapore, 8-1 over Malaysia and also 8-1 over Thailand in the preliminaries, and 8-0 over Singapore in the semifinals before again struggling past Indonesia, 6-4, in the finals.
The Blu Girls were superior over the field. They were 8-1 over Singapore, 9-2 over Thailand, 6-0 over Indonesia and 12-0 over Malaysia in the eliminations. In the semifinals, the Filipinas blasted Singapore, 10-0, and cruised past Thailand, 3-0, in the gold medal match.
The Blu Girls, whose average age is 17 which Santiago said are expected to remain as nationals for the next few years, include Ateneo’s Cheska Altomonte, National University’s Shaira Damasing, Rizal Technological University’s Kriska Piad and Veronica Belleza, University of Santo Tomas’s Joy Roa and Cristine Palma, University of the East’s Marlyn Francisco, Filipino-American Garie Blando and Adamson University’s Flor Pabiania, Annalie Benjamen, Luzviminda Embundo, Lorna Adorable, Elma Parohinog, Queeny Sabobo, Angelie Ursabia and Rizza Bernardino., June 11 (PNA)