NCAA scraps overall championship race

MANILA, Philippines — For the first time in decades, the National Collegiate Athletic Association will have no overall champion with the scrapping of majority of the sports disciplines due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The events cancelled were men’s and women’s volleyball, men’s lawn tennis, men’s and women’s soft tennis, men’s and women’s beach volley, men’s and women’s track and field, men’s and women’s football and women’s badminton.

Cheerdance, a major highlight of the season although not part of the overall championship computation, was also called off.

“It’s hard to come up with a computation to declare the general champion if more than half of your events were cancelled,” said Fr. Victor Calvo of Season 96 host Letran.

San Beda, the most dominant team in the last decade winning seven titles, was leading in the count after reigning supreme in men’s and women’s table tennis, women’s lawn tennis, men’s and women’s swimming and men’s badminton, and placing second to Letran in basketball.

The last time the league didn’t award an overall champion in the seniors division was during the historic People Power event in 1986 although Mapua was awarded the junior general champion.