2008 CVIRAA Meet: Cebu City Niños a big flop in elementary lawn tennis

The mighty Cebu City Niños practically dominated all events save for their  elementary lawn tennis squad that turned out to be a big flop in the 2008 Central Visayas Regional Athletic Association (CVIRAA) Meet at the Carlos P. Garcia Sports Complex in Tagbilaran City.

The Cebu City netters failed to win a single gold medal in the elementary division that was swept by the Cebu Province bets.

Cebu Province dealt its most crushing blow on Cebu City when its top bet Fritz Satera dethroned the heavily-favored, but visibly exhausted Jacob Lagman, 8-6, in the final of the boys singles event.

Satera’s victory came out to be a mixture of luck and breaks of the game.

Heading into the match, Lagman had no proper rest as he had to attend to his graduation at St. Benedict Childhood Learning Center the other day and then took the 10 pm schedule on a boat bound for Tagbilaran.

Lagman and his mother Julie arrived in Tagbilaran past 2 am. They had to sleep on the lobby of the hotel they are going to stay as they could not check-in until late in the morning.

Then, Lagman had to play one game after the other until he reached the final game versus Satera.

Lagman was leading in the early goings until Satera caught up with him and knotted the count at 5-all amid complaints by the latter’s camp that the court was ‘unplayable’ because of the slight drizzle that made it slippery.

Lady luck smiled at Satera as the rain poured in, prompting the game officials to stop the match for about 20 minutes.

When the game resumed, momentum shifted on Satera’s side on the way to complete the huge upset.

In the distaff side, Kimberly Uytico was too much for Cebu City’s Claire Lazaga, 8-0.

Cebu Province also topped the doubles event both in boys and girls divisions.

Cebu City though kept its sizzling run in other fronts with tracksters Lindly Navaja and Jee Ann Racoma emerging as the fastest runners in the secondary level after ruling the century dash. Aside from that, Navaja also snatched the 200m gold.

The other gold medal contributors of the day for Cebu City were Jade Marie Recto in the 400m run, Carl Jeanette Malazarte in the 3,000 m steeplechase, Dharl Pitogo in the 110m, hurdles, and Sheena Gacayan in the 800 m.

Earlier, the Niños ruled swimming, arnis, taekwondo and badminton both in the secondary boys and girls categories.

Thus, the Niños zoomed further to the top of the standings with an unassailable total points of 217. Dumaguete is at second with 79.5 points followed by Cebu Province with 76 points. Bohol Province stood at fourth with 48 points followed by Mandaue with 42 points.

Running at sixth to 10th places were Talisay (39 points), Tagbilaran (31 points), Danao (24.5 points), Lapu-Lapu (22.5 points), and Oriental Negros (5.5 points).