KAYOD Pilipinas, the national squash team, capped its overseas stint yesterday by bagging three silver medals in the men’s and women’s doubles and mixed doubles events in the Southeast Asian-Marigold Jumble Doubles Squash Championships at the Tanglin Club Sports Center in Singapore.
With only two months to prepare for the event on a larger court, Robert Garcia and David Pelino came closest to securing a gold medal, putting up a big fight but eventually losing 13-15, 15-9, 13-15 to the Singaporean duo of Kang and Tan in the men’s doubles best-of-3 finals.
The Tandem of Jemyca Aribado and Alysa Dalida started strong but faded against the Singaporean duo of Yang and Tong 15-8, 8-15, 13-15 in the battle for the women’s doubles gold while Reymark Begornia and Lizette Reyes absorbed a straight-sets 6-15, 6-15 loss to the hometown tandem of Phua and Ong in the mixed doubles.
Philippine Squash Academy president Robert Bachman, the national team manager, was generally satisfied with the way the local racket-wielders performed considering the short time they had in preparing for the jumbo doubles competition.
“I was hoping for two golds today but that’s how the ball bounces. It’s not too bad,” noted Bachman, who also thanked the Philippine Sports Commission for supporting the stint as well as the 7th SEA Squash Cup in neighboring Johor, Malaysia.
“One gold, five silvers and one bronze in two tournaments is not too shabby for our national team since we barely had international exposure for over two years since the COVID-19 pandemic,” he explained.
