Southern Tagalog, NCR tankers dominate Palaro

DAPITAN CITY, Philippines – Southern Tagalog and National Capital Region, powered by Catherine Bondad and Mark Joseph Rominquit’s gold medal romps, respectively, turned up the heat in their assault at the swimming medals in Day 2 of the  2011 Palarong Pambansa here yesterday.

Bondad, 12, dominated the field in the girls 6-12 200-meter individual medley (2:40.59), 100-m freestyle (1:05.02), and 400-m medley relay (5:05.86) elementary plays, to go five-for-five and propel the Region IV-A tankers past rivals NCR in total mint collection, 17 against 14, halfway through the student meet.

Southern Tagalog snared seven other plums to complement Bondad’s haul for the day – Jerome Magallanes (boys’ 13-17 200m breaststroke secondary, 2:33.30); Jose Marie Arcilla (boys 6-12 200m IM elementary, 2:30.37); Franz Marquez (boys 13-17 200m IM secondary, 2:16.50); Maria Aresa Lipat (girls 13-17 200m IM secondary, 2:33.01), and 100m free, 1:02.62); and girls’ 13-17 400m medley.  

Rominquit, a grade 7 student at Lourdes School of Mandaluyong, led NCR’s six-gold harvest and joined Bondad in the five-gold medal club after picking up the plums in boys’ 6-12 100-m freestyle (59.44) and 400m medley (4:41.80).

Sharing the spotlight with the swim achievers were Region VII archer Marie Crizabelle Merto, who was on target and snared four golds and a silver over at the ZN Sports Complex Archery Range 

Living up to Dumaguete’s tradition in archery, 16-year-old Merto stamped her class in secondary girls 30 meter, 40m, 50m, and Single FITA rounds to dominate the field.

“Na-match ko na yung four-gold, one-silver record ko last year, susubukan ko namang makakuha pa ng dalawa (I won’t stop at just matching my medal harvest last year and go for two more golds here),” said the incoming high school senior at Silliman U, who seeks this objective in today’s Olympic Round individual and team match play.

Merto scored a gold-clinching 347 points in the 30m, 326 in 40m, 317 in 50m and 1,288 in Single FITA. She was two points shy of Cordillera’s Febenlyn Encado’s winning 300 in 60m.

Their neighbors, Region VI, collared four more mints at the tracks via Rieveneth Penarubio (400m hurdle secondary girls, 1:05.73), Rhea Castellano (400m hurdles elementary girls, 1:08.86), Rofrey Gilva (400m hurdles elementary boys, 1:01.64), and Maika de Oro (shotput secondary girls, 10.50m).

Western Visayas raised its collection to 10 golds after three days of athletics.

Powerhouse NCR also showed its fangs in the other fronts. NCR made a killing in elementary girls rhythmic gymnastics (team and individual all-around winner Ariell Nicole Orella); badminton (sweep of elementary and secondary boys and girls’ team competitions).

Notes: The 100-meter dash was the fastest event but the recording, finalization and validation of the official results turned out to be slow. As of 6:15 p.m. yesterday, or close to three hours after the four sprint races were concluded, the games’ record-keepers could not provide mediamen with the official times of the winners.