Team Falcons claws championship on badminton doubles

By YHASH FLORES & FRANKLIN GUTIERREZ

Experience overpowers skills.

With nothing but pride and honors at stake, Team Falcons shrugged off their second set hiccups against Sisterakas to take the championship at the ERJHS Badminton Tournament by 22-20, 23-25, 19-21, at Malaya Covered Court on February 23 in celebration of ERJHS’ 71st founding anniversary.

Aerhon Wayne Kyle Manongsong proved to be the ‘The Beast’ inside the court as he unleashed 17 attack points together with Julialyka Sanchez to edge out the ‘Sisterakas’ in the do or die game.

Despite a shaky 19 - 11 start in the last frames Falcons remained composed and flexible, dishing out continuous drives and cross court shots to bait the Sisterakas tandem

Nina Rey Manansala and Christian Priagola to committing several faults before having a quick break.

But after the short timeout, seamlessly transitioning between midcourt offense and fast front court drive exchanges, Manongsong delivered 5 scoring smashes and 3 unresponded cross court shots to tie the game 18 all.

In the end Falcons rode on team chemistry and winning savvy to successfully execute their plays.

“It was very hard at first but we just had fun inside the court, my teammates and I relied on our chemistry and tactics and those lessons that we had nurtured through our experience before to end the game well”, Manongsong replied in a post-game interview.

In other categories Sisterakas’ Colline Nobleza won the women’s single while Jhon Ray Verzosa clinched the men’s title.