By Michael Angelo S. Murillo
Reporter

DAY Three of Season 93 of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) happens today with five more teams making their men’s basketball debut.

Slated at the San Juan Arena, the curtain-raiser at 12 noon will see the University of Perpetual Help Altas taking on the College of St. Benilde Blazers followed by the tiff between the Jose Rizal University Heavy Bombers and Lyceum of the Philippines Pirates at 2 p.m. Capping seniors play for the day is the tussle of Colegio de San Juan Letran Knights against Mapua University Cardinals at 4 p.m.

Beginning a new NCAA year sans key stalwart of seasons past Bright Akhuetie, Perpetual Help is expected to bank on a veteran crew.

Finished with an 11-7 record and was on track to upend eventual champion San Beda College in the Final Four in Season 92, Perpetual Help saw its program absorb a huge blow when Akhuetie decided to leave the school in the offseason and join the University of the Philippines over at the University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP).

With Akhuetie gone, Perpetual Help is turning to its other Nigerian player, Prince Eze, to lead the charge and possibly duplicate their Final Four finish last season or even better it.

To help Eze, the Altas made sure to keep its core of players, which includes AJ Coronel, Gab Dagangon, JG Ylagan, Keith Pido, Flash Gordon Sadiwa and Jack Hao, intact.

These were the same players, along with Akhuetie then, that helped the Altas be a top-half staple team in the standings last year.

Despite the struggles they are expecting to encounter along the way this season, the Altas made it known they are determined to overcome them by taking it a step at a time.

The College of St. Benilde, for its part, is out to improve on the showing it had last year where they finished with a measly 1-17 record.

New coach TY Tang said that for Season 93 it is all about repositioning themselves and taking on a new mind-set towards being competitive anew.

“Ending up with a 1-17 record, everybody has to step up. Everybody has to collaborate. To change the environment, we have to start from us,” Mr. Tang, a former UAAP and Philippine Basketball Association player, said.

“We want to be competitive immediately, in the sense that we want our opponents to know that when they face us it won’t be an automatic win. We hope also that we can reach the Final Four,” the CSB coach added.

In the second game, JRU, which narrowly missed the Final Four last season, looks to begin its bounce-back campaign with a win over Lyceum, which many consider as the dark horse in the ongoing tournament.

Explosive guard Teytey Teodoro is expected to lead the Vergel Meneses-coached Heavy Bombers anew with help from guys like Ervin Gorospe and Gio Lasquety.

Over at Lyceum, the Pirates made solid waves in the preseason which they hope to build on in Season 93.

“It has always been our vision to have a winning culture in Lyceum. We’re not yet there but we are on our way. We welcome the challenge as a dark horse and we will control what we can control and let’s see where it leads us,” said Lyceum coach Topex Robinson, whose team has not finished better than sixth place since joining the league in 2011.

For Letran, meanwhile, it said it hopes to perform better this time around after failing in its title-retention bid last year that saw it fail to make it to the semifinals altogether.

Rey Nambatac is back as the leader of the Knights, which nearly saw its Season 93 put in jeopardy after key cogs JP Calvo and Bong Quinto thought of bolting the team in the lead-up to the tournament. The two players had a change of heart and are back with the Muralla-based team.

Letran looks to win its opener against Mapua, which lost on opening day last Saturday, 91-82, to the Arellano Chiefs.

GLOBAL Cebu FC and Kaya FC-Makati made it a winning Sunday in the Philippines Football League (PFL), defeating their respective opponents to pad their spots in the standings.

Global, playing on its home field of Cebu City Sports Complex for the second straight time, was a 3-0 winner over Stallion Laguna FC on Sunday night while earlier in the day Kaya downed host San Miguel Davao Aguilas FC, 5-1, in Tagum.

In front of its home town crowd for the second time, Global gave their fans another reason to celebrate as it stepped up its game in the second half to dispatch Stallion and earned full three points to move it to solo second place with a 6-2-2 record and 20 points.

It dislodged erstwhile second-running JPV Marikina FC (6-0-3) at 18 points and is now three points behind league-leading FC Meralco Manila (7-2-0).

After being held to a goalless tie in the opening half by visiting Stallion, Global cranked things up in the second fold of the contest with veteran Misagh Bahadoran leading the charge.

The Philippine Azkals member Bahadoran broke the stalemate in the 49th minute after beating Stallion goalkeeper Benito Rosalla, Jr. inside the box to give his team the 1-0 lead, sending the 5,000 or so Global fans in the venue into celebration.

Mr. Bahadoran then added another goal in the 67th minute when he followed up on teammate Shu Sasaki’s foiled lob to make it to 2-0 for the host team.

While his first jab at scoring was stopped by the Stallion defense, Mr. Sasaki redeemed himself in the 86th minute with a goal off an impressive and rare bicycle kick to complete the shutout of Laguna.

With the loss, Stallion (0-3-7) remains winless 10 games to date in the national football league and currently sits on seventh place in the eight-team field with three points.

BACK-TO-BACK WINS
After encountering a rough patch previously, Kaya, meanwhile, has won back-to-back games with its conquest of the Aguilas.

The win was in follow up to its prior win over Stallion, 3-1, in Biñan and thrust Kaya (5-2-3) back inside the top four of the standings with 17 points.

A brace from forward Joven Bedic and goals each from defender Alfred Osei and substitutes Eric Giganto and Kenshiro Daniels did it for Kaya in a game it described after as something it really worked hard for despite the final score.

Mr. Bedic opened the scoring for Kaya in the 20th minute off a Robert Mendy cross that gave his team the upper hand after scary moments in the early goings of the match from the host team.

Davao, however, would do a steady job of not letting things get out of hand for the rest of the opening half thereafter.

The Aguilas then pulled even in the 49th minute care of forward Nikola Grubjesic.

It proved to be the last chance for Davao to be on the board though as Kaya began to cascade on the Aguilas after that.

Mr. Osei broke the tie in the 58th minute, minutes after Davao was reduced to 10 men after Jason Cordova was red-carded for a rough play on Kaya’s Marwin Angeles.

Mr. Bedic made it 3-1 for his team in the 76th minute with a powerful low shot.

Davao native Giganto added to the misery of the Aguilas when he stretched Kaya’s lead to 4-1, in the 87th minute before Mr. Daniels put on the finishing touches with a goal right before the final whistle.

“It wasn’t easy. In the first half Davao really showed what they could do. They even scored. But after they went a man down, they started leaving a lot of space for us to operate. We exploited them every chance we could,” said Kaya coach Noel Marcaida after the game.

With the loss, Davao’s struggles continued, leaving it with a 0-4-5 record and four points, good for sixth place. — Michael Angelo S. Murillo

THE RP Blu Girls snapped out of a 4-game losing skid, defeating world no. 10 Mexico, 4-2, to finish strong on Saturday in the World Cup of Softball XII at the Amateur Softball Association of the Philippines (ASAPHIL) Hall of Fame Complex in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA.

The Philippine women’s softball team were tied with their Mexican opponents, 2-2, until the top of the sixth when the Cebuana Lhuillier-backed Filipinas pulled away with Francesca Altomonte hitting a homer to drive in two runs, sealing the win.

“The Blu Girls have been putting up a great fight against some tough opponents in the World Cup of Softball. Their performance in this tournament has proven that they are ready to face the toughest international teams and are continuously improving to prepare for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics,” said Asaphil President Jean Henri Lhuillier.

At the opening of the World Cup on Wednesday, the 17th-ranked Blu Girls also defeated world no. 4 Australia, 7-5.

The Blu Girls hopes to sustain the momentum of its win going to the Canada Cup International Softball Championship in Surrey, British Columbia where it plays Pakistan and host Canada on July 11, and Chinese Taipei on July 12 at Softball City.

The national team is composed of Gabrielle Maurice, Dani Gilmore, Chelsea Suitos, Sierra Lange, Garie Blando, Hailey Decker, Skylynne Ellazar, Kailey Cuico Riflayca Basa, Angeli Ursabia, Mary Luisse Garde, Cristy Roa, Dione Macasu, Francesca Altomonte, Arianne Vallestero, Ma. Celestine Palma, Lorna Adorable, Shaira Damasing, Mia Macapagal, Reese Guevarra, Riezel Calumbres, Lovely Arago, and Lyca Basa.

THE name Lhuillier has been associated for two things — a multi-industry company and its love for sports.

Since the 1980s, the company has been an avid backer of sports, the most notable was the Lhuillier Jewelers squad in the now defunct PABL.

PJ Lhuillier, which is headed by Jean Henri Lhuillier, continued its support in sports — both local and international through the years.

In the local scene, they bankrolled the Cebu Gems in the short lived Metropolitan Basketball Association, and actively supported tennis and softball in the Philippines.

In the international circuit, the group was a staunch backer of the amateur-laden Philippine men’s basketball team from 2003 to 2005 before politics within the sport intervened and stalled the progress of the program.

PJ Lhuillier also backed the Philippine Mavericks team, which participated in the IPTL, a world-ranking tennis circuit.

This time, a second generation Lhuillier, Stephan Lhuillier, son of Jean Henri and wife, Olympian Bea Lucero-Lhuillier, is doing his share giving back to the sport of tennis and focusing on helping the Pinoy trainers thru the Pinoy Tennis Trainers program for free.

“I’d like to help them financially,” Stephan told BusinessWorld in an exclusive interview. “So I developed this program called Pinoy Tennis Trainers to upgrade their skills and for them to be paid well.”

According to the young Lhuillier, tennis trainers are among the least paid personnel in sports.

“It depends on the clubs. Because some of the higher clubs, the Manila Polo Club or Alabang Club, they are being paid around P200 per hour. The per hour rate is between P150 and P200. If they become coach, it will be doubled. I’m speaking of the higher clubs. But in the provinces, they could only get P80, the ball boys get P10 or P20. It depends on the clubs,” said Stephan.

Part of the program of the Pinoy Tennis Trainers is to send our local trainers abroad to upgrade their skills.

“Hazel Espinosa, formerly No. 4 in the country, she’s working as a trainer now and there’s another one from Amoranto Tennis Club, they were sent to Thailand for free to undergo training and accompanied by (Coach) Roland Kraut,” he added. “They attended a coach’s course. They attended a Level 1 course.”

Mr. Kraut said the trainers and the coaches will definitely benefit from the program started by the young Lhuillier.

“They’re lucky because of the program. Before, we have to go to abroad, apply and take the course and send your credentials, otherwise you’ll lose your accreditation,” said Mr. Kraut. “Trainers live it up to coaches. They think coaching is just making kids play better. Now, we’re opening their eyes to look at the bigger picture.”

The program was created for trainers to understand the important things in training.

“First is for the coaches and trainers to have the knowledge. The next is to create a pool of kids, get them interested. From this pool of kids, the third one is to get players who will be successful. Not everyone will be successful,” said Mr. Kraut. “But right now, it’s educating the coaches. When you go to Visayas and Mindanao, there are a lot of kids, but there are only a few who can teach. We need to equip them.”

The Pinoy Tennis Trainers had gone through different parts of the country and has built interest.

“The program was intended for coaches and trainers to never stop learning. They’re willing. When we go around, we get 30, 40, 50 participants, it means they’re willing. In Cebu, we got 50,” added Mr. Kraut.

“And the good thing is, everything is free — you have food, T-shirt, they have raffle of tennis racquets. All they need to do is to attend.” — Rey Joble