Tanauan cops softball crown

Tanauan “A“fashioned out a dramatic come from behind 3-2 victory over Sta. Maria , Bulacan to gain its first ever crown in the recently concluded 2017 Cebuana Lhuillier – ASAPHIL U-18 Women’s Softball Championship in Sto. Nino in Marikina.

Trailing 0-1, Tanauan scored two runs from Angel Bedano and Kathy Nueva on a fielding and throwing error by Sta. Maria in the upper half of the seventh inning. They kept the lead at 3-2, putting heavy pressure on Sta. Maria at their last turn on the bat.

MVP awardee Royavel Palma from Tanauan, a rookie member of the Blu Girls, helped preserve the lead in the bottom half of the final inning of the week long tournament organized by Asaphil as part of its grassroots developmental program and backed by the Cebuana Lhuillier Group of Companies.

“I was confident about winning this time. We prepared for this for a year and our motivation came from losing to Bacolod last year and we were the ones who were waiting in the finals. We joined a lot of tournaments to give the girls more exposure,” said Tanauan head coach and barangay captain Ramil Mercado whose team received P25,000 as incentive while Sta. Maria got P15,000. Thirdplaced team Rizal received P10,000. Tanauan’s victory also avenged its only loss in the tournament against Sta. Maria which beat them 1-0 in the quarter finals.

“We are very pleased with this event. We had the most number of teams ever at 27 and from the players here, we will select the members of our U-16 and U-18 team, same with the U-19 team. We need to sustain the gains made this year that has seen an improvement in our world ranking from number 17 to number 15, “said Jean Henri Lhuillier, president-CEO of Cebuana Lhuillier.