Even as their rivals collected four gold medals in five events at the second day of the 80th UAAP Swimming Championships, the University of the Philippines Lady Maroons cut the lead of the Ateneo Lady Eagles by 20 points to end the tally with 206 points, behind Ateneo’s 219 points.
Ateneo’s star rookie Chloe Daos won two of those four gold medals in the 400m Freestyle (4:38.15) and 100m Butterfly (1:05.46).
In both events, it was graduating Lady Maroon Delia Cordero who finished second, clocking 4:46.87 in the 400m Freestyle and 1:06.05 in the 100m Butterfly. Another Lady Maroon, Nadine Tee Ten, took the bronze medal in the 400m Freestyle by registering a time of 4:47.23 while it was UST’s Angelic Saavedra who finished third in the 100m Butterfly with a time of 1:09.10 respectively.
But it was UP’s dominance in the 50m Breaststroke, where Ateneo had no qualifiers, that proved to be the most productive event for the Lady Maroons. Joy Rodgers conquered the event in 33.90 ahead of teammate Teresa Dela Rosa’s 36.67 and NU newcomer Nichole Evangelista’s 36.82.
To gain some lost ground, the Lady Eagles surprisingly swept the podium in the 200m Backstroke. Freshman Courtney Gray (2:27.65) and senior Ariana Herranz (2:28.00) were in a class of their own but a spirited performance by team captain Julia Balanag (2:34.58) became the highlight of the night as she edged out two UP contenders enroute to her first individual bronze medal.
The Lady Eagles capped the night off by ruling the 4x100m Freestyle Relay as Hannah Castañeda, Hannah Dato, Shayn Ting and Andrea Ngui teamed up to finish first in 4:14.58. UP finished second in 4:21.16 while UST was third in 4:28.34.
In the individual awards race, Rookie of the Year and MVP candidate Daos leads all swimmers with 57 points while UP’s Tee Ten has 51 points.
UAAP Season 80 Women’s Swimming tally after Day 2
ADMU – 219
UP – 206
UST – 57
DLSU – 35
NU – 16
On Deck
200m Freestyle
100m Breaststroke
50m Butterfly
100m Backstroke
400m Individual Medley
4x50m Freestyle Relay
The Preliminary Session begins at 8:30am while the Finals Session begins at 3:30pm
