2008 PALARONG PAMBANSA : Navaja, Echavez sparkle

PUERTO PRINCESA—Cebuano sprinter Lindley Fran Navaja stayed as the fastest runner in the Palarong Pambansa after ruling the century dash in Day 4 of the week-long athletic meet at the Ramon V. Mitra, Jr. Sports Complex here.

Navaja, a member of the decorated University of Cebu (UC) Athletics Team, breasted the tape in 11.2 seconds, a relative improvement of his 11.5 seconds clocking when he topped the same event in last year’s Palaro hosted by Koronadal City.

The victory of the 16-year-old Navaja was even more dramatic as he bested his closest pursuer by just a fraction of a second.

Navaja trains his sights next on a rare treble as he plunges into action in 200m and 400m events.

With his resounding triumph, Navaja turned to be an instant hit among Manila-based schools, with Far Eastern University (FEU) and San Sebastian College (SSC) offering him athletic scholarship in college.

Aside from Navaja, the other apparition of delight for the Central Visayas contingent was swimmer Loren Dale Echavez, who became the region’s first double gold medal winner.

Echavez pocketed her second gold after dominating the secondary girls 100m freestyle event with a time of one minute and 2.14 seconds.

Irin Balauran, on the other hand, failed to duplicate her golden finish in triple jump. This time, she just settled for a silver in long jump after leaping to a distance of 5.16 meters.

Another secondary trackster Jeannette Malazarte came up with a silver in steeple chase with a time of 10:38.8.

Sarah Mae Napoles, for her part, also made a valuable contribution to Region 7 in athletics by clinching gold in triple jump with a distance of 10.11m.

Napoles’ teammate Roy Villahermosa got a bronze in the 400m hurdles.

Late Tuesday, Central Visayas swept all eight golds available in lawn tennis. Composing the secondary boys squad are Nino Siso, Larry Antigua, Francis Largo and Israel Abarquez, while the elementary side was manned by Fritz Satera, Jacob Lagman, Alexis Ondoy and Joef Tabotabo.

So far, Central Visayas now has 14 golds, 11 silvers and six bronzes.

The media center nor the records and results committee of the Palaro have not yet released an official medal tally.

In other fronts, Central Visayas cruised to its third straight win in elemetary basketball after drubbing Ilocos region, 73-52, while its baseball squad, composed of players from Cabadiangan Elementary School of Compostela, nailed its second win in a row via a 12-0 whitewash of Southern Tagalog region. The region’s sipa bets were also victorious over Region IV-A, 21-17, 21-15.