NU bags UAAP Baseball crown
By Eddie Alinea
PhilBoxing.com
Tue, 13 Mar 2012
?Good teams win games, but great teams win championships.? With this proposition inculcated in their players? minds, the National University Bulldogs finally reaped the fruits of their three-year build up program by winning the 74TH UAAP baseball championship. It was NU?s only third title since forming the ?Big Three,? along with the University of the Philippines and University of Santo Tomas, that separated from the NCAA and organized the varsity league in 1938, and their third since completing a back-to-back feat in the 1965-66 and 1966-67 season.
Baseball, actually, is the only team sport where NU athletes, reign supreme in the varsity league starting in the Bulldogs? glorious years in the 60s when Jose ?Pepe? Pinga, acknowledged as the finest shortstop Philippine baseball has produced, Simplicio Castillo, Roberto Ballesteros, Toti Ballesteros and Gay Concepcion were battling the likes of legends Filomeno ?Boy? Codinera, Reynaldo ?Baby? Manzanarez and Rudy Lugay, to mention a few, in both the collegiate and commercial leagues.
?For three years, since the Sy family acquired NU in 1999 and for the entire year of our preparations, the management, members of the coaching staff and myself, kept reminding our players in almost a broken record fashion of that slogan which we used as battle cry in our baseball campaign,? team manager Wopsy Zamora disclosed in last Friday?s SCOOP Sa Kamayan weekly session at the Kamayan Restaurant-Padre Faura.
?To our players? credit, they took it as their primary motivation instead of getting tired of our constant reminder,? Zamora told his audience in the public service forum, sponsored by Coca Cola Export, AKTV 5,FILA and UNTV.
Zamora said the school management, headed by SM Prime Holdings president and NU chair Hans Sy, won?t be satisfied ending the Bulldogs? 46-year championship draught.
?Now that the crown has been won, we will be eyeing a repeat of our two-straight title conquest in the 60s, and who knows, to extend the winning beyond that,? Zamora told members of the Sports Communicators Organization of the Philippines.
?If possible, we want to build an NU dynasty in baseball to give honor to ?Mommy? (Leticia) Paguia whose spirit has kept baseball alive in the UAAP even years after her death, Zamora said.
The late ?Mommy? Paguia is still acknowledged as the matriarch of the baseball and softball movement in the country and had been a long-time high-ranking officials of both the Baseball Federation of Asia (BFA) and the Amateur Softball Association-Asia (ASA-Asia), she both helped organized.
?Plan is also afoot to form a women?s softball team to further keep the memory of ?Mommy? alive,? Zamora, who, like his boss Hans Sy, also played baseball and softball in his high school days, assured. A repeat of a back-to-back triumph is not that remote because league MVP Aries Oruga, the 19-year-old hero of the Bulldogs? coming from a 0-1 deficit in the title playoff by pitching NU to victories in Game 2 and Game 3, is only in his third year and still have two playing years left.
Coach Zacky Bacarisas? ?murderers row? will also be kept intact and with a bevy of talents in the reserve list, Zamora believes NU will be a force to reckon with in years to come.
Bacarisas was referring to starters Jezreel Rosita, NU?s lead-off batter who plays second, rightfielder Mark Bryan Lumbres, centerfielders Mike-John Ganter, Orugao?s reliever, catcher Alfredo Olivarez, first baseman Aprix Santos, designated hitter Mark Anthony Elic, shortstop Ram Casey Alipio, leftfielder Herxel Fortunato and third baseman Jhondel Tolosa.
NU?s bench will also be as powerful, according to Bacarisas what with Erison Villame, Allanm Turaray, Bryan Diaz, Benjelico Escolango, Russel dela Cruz and Marcial Gante expected to come of age next year.
Zamora also attributed the Bulldogs? title win in the bonding the management, team officials and the players established among themselves in the course of the campaign.
?On the eve of each of our game, officials and members of the team stayed in my house, having dinner together,? he said A repeat of a back-to-back triumph is not that remote because league MVP Aries Oruga, the 19-year-old hero of the Bulldogs? coming from a 0-1 deficit in the title playoff by pitching NU to victories in Game 2 and Game 3, is only in his third year and still have two playing years left.
Coach Zacky Bacarisas? ?murderers row? will also be kept intact and with a bevy of talents in the reserve list, Zamora believes NU will be a force to reckon with in years to come.
Bacarisas was referring to starters Jezreel Rosita, NU?s lead-off batter who plays second, rightfielder Mark Bryan Lumbres, centerfielers Mike-John Ganter, Orugao?s reliever, catcher Alfredo Olivarez, first baseman Aprix Santos, designated hitter Mark Anthony Elic, shortstop Ram Casey Alipio, leftfielder Herxel Fortunato and third baseman Jhondel Tolosa.
NU?s bench will also be as powerful, according to Bacarisas whwt with Erison Villame, Allanm Turaray, Bryan Diaz, Benjelico Escolango, Russel dela Cruz and Marcial Gante expected to come of age next year. Zamora paid tribute to Sy?s hands on type of managing the school?s affairs, especially NU?s sports program under athletic director Junel Baculi, which he said serves as additional inspiration to all the teams the Sampaloc-based institution is involved in.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Eddie Alinea.
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