Webmasters promise to bounce back strong

Camylle Psalm Mosota of the University of Cebu receives the baton from teammate Jhuvan Jhen Baculot during the secondary girls 400-meter relay finals in the Milo Little Olympics Visayas Eliminations at the Cebu City Sports Center. (CDN PHOTO/ LITO TECSON)

After failing to reclaim the secondary division crown in the recent 19th Milo Little Olympics Visayas Finals, the University of Cebu (UC) Webmasters vowed to double their  effort in strengthening their  ranks  for future multi-sporting events.

UC athletic director Bernard Ricablance, in an exclusive interview with Cebu Daily News during Sunday’s 7th Dancesports Sa Sugbo at the Waterfront Cebu City Hotel and Casino, promised to improve the quality of the training of his athletes for future competitions.

UC was once untouchable in the Milo regional meet, dominating the first 17 editions before losing to the University of San Carlos-Basic Education Department (USC-BED) in the last two years.

“In competition there will always be winners and losers,” Ricablanca said. “It just happened that we participated in only a few events. But despite that, we still landed  in the 2nd place in the secondary division.”

“What we will do now is to increase our training five times more than what we are doing in preparation for future events. Anyway, there are still more competitions ahead like the Cesafi, the City Olympics and the CVIRAA,” he added.

BALANCED STUDENT/ATHLETE

After taking  the lead in the first two days of the Milo competition, the Webmasters  finished second in the secondary division next to eventual overall champion USC-BED.

“What we are also doing presently is that we are developing a complete balance of an athlete and a student and not just developing a student on being just an athlete.”

Ricablanca also noted that the outcome of the past two editions of the Milo meet is a good sign for the Visayas region as a whole.

“We are happy to note that other schools are now very competitive,” Ricablanca said. “What this means is that it’s a good sign for the Visayas delegation to the Milo National Finals that we have now many competitive athletes.”

The Webmasters’ final day in the Milo Visayas was greeted with a stunning upset after Danao City’s Beatriz Durano Memorial National High School bested defending champion UC in secondary table tennis.