SEA Games: PH bowlers optimistic gold medal still within reach

By Erma Edera

The Philippine s bowling team — a mix of veteran and young athletes — holds an advantage especially in getting an elusive gold medal in the 2019 Southeast Asian (SEA) Games, its national coach Biboy Rivera said.

This, after the PH keglers picked up two more medals — silver (men’s) and bronze (women’s) in the team event at the Coronado Lanes in Starmall, Mandaluyong City on Friday.

“It’s an advantage for us because we get the best of both worlds, we have the explosiveness, the hunger of the young ones and the experience of the veterans so parang they complement each other from what we saw in this team event, they supported each other out, they tried to keep the morale up of each other,” Rivera told the Manila Bulletin.

Rivera believes they could snatch a gold medal in the upcoming bowling events.

“We are still optimistic and from what we saw today, we have a good chance so we will just do our best and hopefully, until our best is good enough,” he said.

However, legendary bowler Paeng Nepomuceno expressed disappointment after the national team came close to capturing a gold medal in the team’s events.

“We were close to a gold medal for men’s and women’s, unfortunately, minalas lang ng konting konti. The men bowls superb on the last game kaya lang kulang pa ng konti so we only end up silver. The women’s sayang they went a little bit down on the last game from second naging third sila,” he said.

Alexis Sy, who settled for ninth place in the women’s all event said they had encountered a lot of struggles during the tournament.

“We had a lot of struggles especially nung transition, yung paglipat after a game, since nilalaro ng taga ibang bansa yung lanes na yun, sinisilip namin kung ano yung ginawa nilang strategy so we tried our best to score kung ano yung ginagawa nila,” she said.

Bong Coo, the 1979 women’s Bowling World Cup champion echoed Rivera saying that the national team still has a “fighting chance” to have at least two gold medals in the Masters event on Saturday.

“Tomorrow we will have a big chance because tomorrow young bowlers in the finals. I hope yung dalawang gold, reachable pa,” she said.

Bea Hernandez, who landed third in the women’s all event said that she would continue to lead the bid in the masters event.

“Everything will be the same, I will be bowling the same game plan and same mindset as well and I will do my best,” she said.

Merwin Tan and Patrick Nuqui, who qualified eight and 13th respectively in the men’s all events, will also advance to the masters event after slugging it out with the competition’s top 16 bowlers.

Lara Posadas Wong, who made the cut after placing 16th, said that she was happy because everybody in the team won a medal.

“It feels unreal kasi, everybody has a medal and we’re very happy,” Wong said.

 

Source: Manila Bulletin