Monday, November 24, 2008 ANS tops City Olympics By Marian C. Baring Sun.Star Staff Reporter
FIVE points was all the Abellana National School needed to reclaim lost glory and win the secondary division title of the Cebu City Olympics, which ended yesterday at the Cebu City Sports Center.
ANS, the only school that stands alone as a unit, snatched the overall title from last year’s winner, Unit 5, by just five points.
ANS or Unit 9, garnered 245 points in the two-weekend meet, while Unit 5 finished second with 239.5 points, while Unit 4 was third with 218.1 points.
Unit 5’s chances hinged on the football match of Paref-Springdale, which it eventually won, 7-6, via shootout over the Don Bosco Technology Center of Unit 1.
The match had DBTC written all over it as it was holding on to a precarious lead, 1-0, all throughout the game. However, in the final few minutes, Carlos Veloso of Springdale struck the equalizer.
However, the goal was hotly contested as prior to the play, the DBC bench claimed that the ball should have been out.
The call did not come and in the ensuing play, Veloso scored the equalizer to force a shootout. This led the DBTC coaching staff, headed by Glen Ramos, to storm the field to complain, but the referee’s decision prevailed.
The win did not come easy for Springdale as it needed to defeat Don Bosco twice yesterday in order to stay in contention.
Don Bosco enjoyed a twice-to-beat advantage after defeating Springdale in eliminations. Springdale defeated DBTC in the morning, 1-0, behind a goal from Jethro delos Santos, a reinforcement from University of Southern Philippines Foundation.
“I was confident that we could pull through,” said head coach Mario Ceniza. Ceniza, who steered the same team to a second place finish in this year’s Palaro, admitted that the team had difficulty at first.
“It was hard to gather everyone at training because we come from different schools and there are so many school commitments. But we got over it,” said Ceniza.
College champion
In the elementary division, Unit 6 took the over all plum with 186 points, followed by Units 5 and 1 with 174 and 171 points.
Unit 6 overpowered the other competitors and dominated in gymnastics, taekwondo, arnis, badminton and swimming.
Meanwhile, the University of Cebu sealed another victory in the college division. The UC squad collected 29 golds, 19 silvers and nine bronzes to retain the collegiate title.
UC got most of their golds from the athletics, arnis and swimming events, to beat the Southwestern University and Cebu State College of Science.
SWU had 22 golds, 10 silvers and 16 bronzes, while CSCST got 20 golds, 17 silvers and 21 bronzes. (MCB)
