Sports Eye
Manantan Tech quintet, the team to reckon with
By Jesus A. Garcia Jr.
BASKETBALL aficionados, including this writer, were surprised to learn that a once bucolic team has turned to be a giant today in the collegiate basketball caging. The Manantan Technical School squad being sponsored by LBS International Recruitment Solutions, Corp. in most of their games in Cagayan Valley especially in Diffun, Quirino and Cordon in Isabela has never been a champion (so far) either in collegiate or in inter-commercial basketball league but a perennial runner-up, including their latest stint in the Metro Urdaneta Athletic Association Invitational Basketball Cup that just ended last March 13. The Manantan Tech five called “Pistons” stunned the 2013 PRISAA National Collegiate Games silver medalists Lyceum Northwestern University Dukes by taking the first match, 105-86. Avoiding a humiliation, the determined and well-honed up boys of Atty. Gonzalo Duque avenged their defeat by routing the Pistons in their second encounter, 92-80.
The third and final skirmish (March 13) turned to be a standoff for five hours because of apprehension in the selection of NABRO court arbiters to officiate. But the impasse was eventually resolved and surprisingly the final match went into overtime after an 89-89 deadlock . Using their national experience and with much perseverance, the fifteen-man squad Dukes of Gonz prevailed in the end, 101-98, to notch their second straight tiara in the province. “The Pistons fought a good fight, finished the tourney and have kept the faith,” said Lito B. Soriano, the honorary team manager of the Pistons. “Basta nandiyan na sumusuporta sa amin palagi ang LBS International Recruitment Solutions, Corp., hindi nila kami basta-basta matitinag ng kahit anong team dito sa region,” said the confident Pistons head coach Xerxes Agibuay.” “Yes, of course, also with the able support of our boss George Guerzon Manantan,”Agibuay averred.
Yes, I believe him. I think the team is not a pushover now, unlike before. The Pistons at present is the team to reckon with in this new era of basketball.
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Sad to know that another veteran triathlete died during a triathlon event called “Unilab Active Health’s Tri United 1” held in Subic Bay last week. The report says a lawyer named Reymond Cruz, 41, collapsed during the 10K run leg and never recovered after some efforts by emergency personnel to revive him at the hospital failed. Doctors said he died because of aneurysm. This was the second time in-a-row that a participant in a triathlon event (swim-bike-run) passed away in this grueling, strenuous and punishing sport. The first one was Ramon Igaña Jr., reported as a doctor, who died during the Cobra Ironman 70.3 Philippines held in Cebu last August. He died after taking a crash during the bike leg caused by acute pulmonary embolism or the abrupt blockage of a blood vessel in the lung.
I was in Cebu City at that time to manage the Mangaldan team during the 2012 Tour of Cebu when the news broke out in the papers and on radio. But I did not pay much attention about it because I knew that joining a strenuous event like cycling and triathlon is always hazardous. But it happened again. To me this is already too much. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Triathlon event kills. Like Tom Carrasco (president of the Triathlon Association of the Philippines), I’m also an organizer of a strenuous sport cycling and I don’t really want this to happen to any of my racers. Triathling is a demanding sport. My unsolicited advice to all competitors is to undergo a thorough medical check-up before they enter any competition, especially triathlon The two deaths already confirmed that too much of any strenuous sport can also be life threatening.
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My deepest sympathy to the family of Philippine Daily Inquirer sports columnist Manolo R. Iñigo who passed away last March 9 due to a lingering illness. Manolo, 75, fondly called “Doc” by his friends and media colleagues, used to cover the defunct Tour of Luzon by Atty. Geruncio Lacuesta and also was a former international boxing judge of the World Boxing Council. He’s the father of my cumpadre Dennis Iñigo, the sports editor of the daily tabloid Balita. May he rest in peace.
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QUOTE OF THE WEEK: Then Jesus looked around and said to His disciples, “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” But Jesus looked at them and said, “With men it is impossible, but not with God; for with God all things are possible.” MARK 10: 23, 25, 27.
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