With singles gold medalist Merwin Tan leading the way, the men\u2019s bowling team sparkled Thursday, adding a second victory to the Philippine campaign in the 31st Southeast Asian Games here by ruling the team-of-4 event.<\/p>\n
Three days after Tan ended the country\u2019s golden drought in bowling in the biennial games, the Philippine flag was raised and the national anthem was heard anew at the Royal City Hanoi Bowling Lanes as the Pinoy keglers dominated action, finishing with 5275 pinfalls, 113 pins ahead of runner-up Malaysia.<\/p>\n
The gold was the Philippines\u2019 39th overall, counting the mint delivered by the women\u2019s squad in the Wild Rift event of esports late Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Tan, a 22-year-old left-hander, rolled 1411 pinfalls for a six-game average of 235.17, the best among all the 24 competitors in the six-team field, while Christian Dychangco backed him up with 1377 pinfalls and an average of 229.50, including a tournament-high 278 in the sixth and final game.<\/p>\n
Ivan Malig carded 1285 pinfalls for an average of 214.17 while the fourth member of the winning team, Patrick Neil Nuqui, shot 1202 for an average of 200.33.<\/p>\n
\u201cMasayang-masaya po sa second gold. Hindi namin inaasahang mananalo, basta inin-joy lang namin ang game (We’re so happy for this second gold. It is unexpected, we just enjoyed the game),\u201d said Tan, a former junior bowler competing in his third SEA Games.<\/p>\n
Tan\u2019s singles win ended the country\u2019s long gold medal drought in SEA Games bowling, with Frederick Ong last doing the trick in the 2011 Indonesia Games.<\/p>\n
Tan and Dychango bounced back from a seventh-place finish in men\u2019s doubles last Wednesday, two rungs lower than the tandem of Malig and Nuqui.<\/p>\n
\u201cBetween team and individual gold medal, mas gusto ko \u2018yung team kasi kami lahat uuwi ng medalya (I chose team because all of us will bring home medal),” said Tan, who rolled a total of 1292 last Monday, propped up by a six-bagger in the sixth game where he scored 249.<\/p>\n
Coach Biboy Rivera said his players displayed teamwork and camaraderie that propelled them to victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir desire to give glory to God and make the country proud was greater than their fear of not making it or fear of losing. And with the grace of God, we prayed the rosary. I knew we were short on training but if God is with us, who can be against us,\u201d bowling secretary-general Bong Coo said. \u201cNagdasal lang kami ng nagdasal (We prayed hard).\u201d<\/p>\n
Malaysia, the leader after the first three-game block last Wednesday, finished second with 5161 pinfalls, while Singapore bagged the bronze with 4963. Indonesia finished fourth (4890), followed by Thailand (4691), and Vietnam (4570).<\/p>\n
Women\u2019s silver medalist Alexis Sy will lead the country\u2019s quest for a double gold team win on the distaff side in the company of Rachelle Leon Collanto, Mades Lourdes Arles and Lara Posadas-Wong later Thursday.<\/p>\n
Singapore leads the bowling medal race here with a 2-1-3 tally so far, followed by the Philippines (2-13), Indonesia (1-1-1), Malaysia (0-1-1) and Thailand (0-1-0). (PNA)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The men\u2019s bowling team sparkled Thursday, adding a second victory to the Philippine campaign at the 31st Southeast Asian Games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":219720,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19265],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-219721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-great-filipino-story"],"zyndk8_nxtgen_metadata":[],"yoast_head":"\n