Dribblers trounce Japanese, reach quarters

SINGAPORE – The Philippines overcame tall odds in basketball and swimming but found the level of competition a little too high in bowling yesterday as the first Asian Youth Games kept on going in venues scattered all over this tiny island nation.

The RP boys’ team of Cris Tolomia, Jeron Alvin Teng, Jeoffrey Javillonar and Mario Bonleon made it to the quarterfinals of the FIBA 3-on-3 following a scary 34-26 win over Japan at the Anglican High School which is 10 kms outside the main city.

It was the third straight win for the RP dribblers who earlier defeated Mongolia, 34-11, and Iran, 27-26. The victory over the taller, favored Iranians gave the Filipinos the needed confidence going into the match against the Japanese.

Tolomia is the younger brother of former NCAA star Chester Tolomia while Teng is the son of ex-PBA defensive specialist Alvin Teng. They face Jordan today but regardless of the result will advance against either Thailand or the UAE.

The RP girls team made up of Jonah Mari Melendres, Tara Araneta, Danica Jose and Tricia Piatos also stayed in track but not after a close call against Uzbekistan which ran out of players on the court and lost by default.

The Uzbeks were actually ahead, 28-26, in the final 30 seconds when a second player fouled out, leaving only one player on the floor. Teams are allowed to bring in four players but Uzbekistan only managed to send three to the event.

Under the rules, a team must have a minimum of two players on the court. Otherwise, it loses by default.

“They’ve been up against taller opponents and yet they’ve pulled through,” said Steve Hontiveros of the Philippine Olympic Committee who joined POC president Jose Cojuangco in looking over the RP athletes over the last couple of days here.

Swimmer Dorothy Grace Hong reached today’s finals of the girls’ 100-m backstroke but is expected to face some rough sailing against the finest swimmers in the region. She came in fifth (1:07.37) behind Hong Kong’s Claudia Lau who topped their heat in 1:05.93.

Another RP swimmer created some early ripples when Jose Joaquin Gonzales placed fourth in the qualifying heat of the boys’ 100-m back in 1:01.62. He’s in the semis where he should face swimmers two or three seconds better than him.

Sixty-two Filipino athletes are entered in the Games reserved for those aged 14-17 years. There are 10 sports on tap (diving, swimming, athletics, basketball, beach volley, bowling, football, sailing, shooting and table tennis) with 90 gold medals at stake.

But there are some who have gone out, including the 20-strong football team because of the dreaded A(H1N1) virus and diver, Natassia Nalus, who placed fourth in the 3-m springboard behind her foes from Korea, Macau and China. She was the top Southeast Asian diver in her event.

Over at the Orchid Country Club, bowlers Madelina Llamas and Lingling de Guzman teamed up for eighth place while Dyan Coronacion and Alexis Sy came in ninth in the doubles event won by New Hui Fen and Darshini Krishna of Singapore.

Llamas and De Guzman scored 2318 after six games while Coronacion and Sy logged 2273. Fen, who gave Singapore its first gold in the Games when she won the singles gold the other day, and Krishna won with their 2680 total.

“These are bowlers no older than 17 years and yet they roll games of 270 or 280. The scoring here is just too high for us. But this is something we’ve just started working on and we can’t just produce medals right away against the super countries,” said Hontiveros.

The dreaded Malaysians are not around after their athletes were prevented from leaving their country because of the swine flu scare. For the Singaporeans, each gold medal is worth $4,000 or roughly P120,000.

In shooting, Jayson Escumbie Valdez and Diane Nicole Eufemio were booted out of the preliminaries in the 10m air rifle for boys and girls, respectively, following Alyssa Valdez and Kim Fajardo’s 2-1 defeat against Shu-han Tsai and Chen Yi-Fang of Chinese Taipei.

Ian Lariba and Val Stephen earned some measure of pride for the country after downing Kuwait, 2-1, for their second straight victory in table tennis.

 The tournament, which offers 12 golds in athletics, seven golds in swimming and one in shooting today, serves as a prelude to the Youth Olympics to be held in this city next year.