Lady Falcons snare UAAP softball crown

Adamson University survived a scare and nipped University of Santo Tomas (UST), 7-6, yesterday to snare its fifth women’s softball crown in Season 66 of the University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP).

The Lady Falcons found a UST crew that was tougher and more determined to send the series to the distance as they were shadowed for the entire seven innings by the Lady Tigers, who refused to wilt on their home field in España.

Both teams exploded with four runs right in the first inning with Lady Tiger Gedda Valencia catching winner Alleny Figueroa’s pitch for a three-run homerun that created the early deadlock.

Adamson scattered three more runs in the next four frames to go up, 7-5, but were almost caught napping by a UST rally at the bottom seventh.

With one out, Joan Locsin singled to center but stood there on Esmeralda Tayag’s sacrifice fly. Locsin later advanced to second on an intentional walk that sent Valencia on board. Emily Tayag’s grounder to third scored Locsin for a nail-biting 7-6 Adamson edge. But Valencia was put out on the next play giving Adamson the title.

Adamson actually encountered rough sailing as compared with their performance last Saturday when they beat the Lady Tigers, 3-0, in the first match of the race-to-two duel. Yesterday, the match showed how tight their head-to-head battle was this season–UST prevailed in the two elimination matches over Adamson, both in eight innings, 6-5 and 5