La Salle pulls off Samsung sweep

MANILA, Philippines - Behind the sparkling performance of Miggy Yee and his Greenhills teammates, La Salle completed a three-division sweep of the boys play in the 10th Samsung Interscholastics golf championships recently at the Canlubang Golf and Country Club north course in Laguna.

The 14-year-old Yee fired a tournament-best 57 points equivalent to three-under-par in medal play to capture the overall individual crown and lead La Salle Greenhills to its fifth overall team title since the event was first held in 2001.

Counting the 51s of Inigo Raymundo and AR Ramos, the LSGH boys posted their best total of 159 for a three-day total of 471, beating college team La Salle Taft by 31 points. Jan de Claro and Luigi Guerrero were the other members of the LSGH team.

While LSGH also cruised to victory in the grade school division, La Salle Taft provided the last day drama when it rallied from nine points down to Ateneo by three for the college division title.

Samsung is the chief backer of the tourney, which is also supported by Custom Clubmakers, Omnisource International, BCLN Golf, Titleist, Cobra, Footjoy, ABW Leaves of Life, CranUTI and Gargol with the special sanction of the Junior Golf Foundation of the Philippines. Inquirer Golf and A Round of Golf are media partners.

Behind by 16 at the start of the tourney and by nine after two rounds, Joey Huerva, Gino Bunyi and Jonar Austria, outscored Ateneo, 150-138, to complete the La Salle sweep. Eric Gallardo and Efren Zaldarriaga were the other members of La Salle.

Brothers Ryan and Ivan Monsalve led LSGH teammates Joaquin Romero and Nikolo Gatmaytan to the grade school plum over Brent.

In the girls division, St. Paul Pasig’s Maan Legaspi and Marvi Monsalve claimed the high school-college category while Nikki Bruce and Sam Pagdanganan steered Assumption teammates Annika Cedo, Sam Bruce and Andrea Pineda to the grade school championship.

Yee’s brother Miko, playing for College of St. Benilde, bagged the college individual trophy. Gen Nagai of the Center for International Education won the high school division and Alex Delfin Trinos of La Salle Canlubang took the special division.

Marvi Monsalve (college/high school), Mia Legaspi of St. Paul’s Pasig (grade school) and Mikha Fortuna of La Salle Zobel (special division) were the girls individual winners.