UAAP schools score first blood in Ang Liga opener

MANILA, Philippines – Top UAAP schools University of the Philippines (UP), Ateneo De Manila Univerisity (ADMU) and National University (NU) each tallied their first wins to kick off the 12th Ang Liga pre-season competition opening day at the Ateneo High School Football Field on Saturday, June 21.

This year’s Ang Liga season started with a quadruple-header inaugural day featuring bouts from the top contenders for this year’s pre-season title.

Simultaneous matches between UP and Emilio Aguinaldo College (EAC) and Rizal Technological University (RTU) versus University of the East (UE) marked the opening of the 12th edition of the pre-season games.

Both games started of with a sluggish start as all four teams went scoreless going into halftime. 

As the second half of play started, games went physical as cautions went out here and there for most of the booters in the field.

For the RTU versus UE game, a total of 6 players, three from each of the two squads were each given yellow cards.

The match-up between the two teams became more interesting as two players from UE – namely Richard Mayor and Michael Tulio – were sent off the field leaving their team with just 9 players on the pitch.

Booters from both squads went on the offensive trying to snap the deadlock to finally win the match but their efforts were wasted at the game ended in a scoreless draw.

On the other hand, the Fighting Maroons versus the Generals game did not end as blandly as the other one as Maroon booter Yatco managed to sneak past his defender and find the back of the net during the 86th minute. 

Not long after the goal, a late game scuffle on the final minute of regulation erupted between players of the two squads resulting to the ejection of UP booter Vitriolo and EAC booter Magtubo. The game ended with a lone goal in favor of the Diliman-based squad. 1-nil.

During the second round of simultaneous games, NU team B and Don Bosco Mandaluyong went at it together with the game between Ateneo and Perpetual.

The atmosphere at the turf went from dull to ecstatic as NU-B showed off their football prowess by totally dominating their hapless foes.

NU Booter Chima Uzoka opened the scoring for the Bulldogs during the 23rd minute swiftly followed by another goal by his teammate Francis Mbei on the 31st.

As the halftime mark approached, the booters of Don Bosco exerted all efforts to score before the end of the half but they went back empty handed. NU-B ended the first half leading Don Bosco Mandaluyong, 2-nil.

Second half started with the Grey Wolves of Mandaluyong hoping to break their scoreless spell but the Blue and Gold defense is practically impenetrable to their weak offense.

The Sampaloc-based kickers’ offense, however, proved to be too strong for the defense of the Don Bosco back line as two more goals were tallied for them in the second half.

Jacob Gomez and Eric Araojo left their defenders to score the final two goals for the Bulldogs on the 67th and 85th minute, respectively, ending the match in favor of their squad, 4-nil.

To finally cap off the victories for the UAAP-side, the Katipunan-based booter Timothy Pedrigon scored on the 63rd minute to take the first win for his home squad. ADMU defeated NCAA-side adversary University of Perpetual Help Dalta, 1-nil. – Rappler.com