Volleybelles falter as Cviraa finishes sixth in 58th Palaro

Tagum City— It’s back to the drawing board for the Central Visayas Regional Athletic Association (Cviraa).

This after Cviraa slumped to one of its worst finishes in the Palarong Pambansa, settling for just a sixth-place finish at the end of the week-long competition of the 58th edition yesterday here.

Hauling 18 gold medals, 29 silvers and 29 bronzes, Cviraa dropped two places down from its rank last year, where it collected 24 golds, 21 silvers and 41 bronzes.

Failing to duplicate its performance last year, Cviraa even almost tied its worst finish in team history, which was at seventh place.

“We will have a post-Palaro meeting with the coaches and teachers to see what went right and what went wrong,” said Victor Yntig, athletic manager of Cviraa. “We will evaluate everything to determine what we can do to improve our performance in the next Palaro.”

Region 7 has been a consistent fourth place finisher. Cviraa finished third in the 2013 Palaro, its best finish since it was crowned overall champion in 1994 edition hosted by Cebu City.

As expected, the National Capital Region (NCR) emerged as the runaway champion after raking in 98 golds, 67 silvers and 71 bronzes. Region 4-A duplicated its second place finish last year with a 51-41-49 (g-s-b) tally. Retaining its spot was

Region 6, which finished third at 42-48-41. The Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR), last year’s fifth placer, wound up fourth at 24-22-16. Region 10 snagged the fifth spot with 19 golds, 14 silvers and 39 bronzes.

Completing the top 10 were Region 3 (17-10-21), Region 12 (13-24-28), Region 11 (13-23-3)), and Region 5 (9-14-19).

With more silvers, Cviraa could have taken Region 10’s spot but its elementary girls volleyball team suffered a heartbreaking 25-11, 7-25, 26-28 loss to Region 4-A in their championship match yesterday. The loss denied Cviraa from tying Region 10’s gold medal harvest.

The Cviraa elementary athletes collected eight golds, 13 silvers and 13 bronzes, while the secondary athletes harvested 10 golds, 16 silvers and bronzes.

Gold winners for Cviraa were archer Nicole Marie Tagle (30-meter and 60m  events) swimmer Raven Faith Alcoseba (100m backstroke and 200m individual medley), Shanelle Demilys Siasoyco (secondary shot put), Chan Mart Torregosa (elementary 400m hurdles), Eden dela Fuente (elementary triple jump), Diane Sophia Navarro (secondary women’s artistic gymnastics beam event), the elementary boys badminton team of Lyrden Laborte, Neil John Navarette, Allen Penute and Jef Angelo Guangco and the badminton elementary girls team of Zinah Marichelle Bejasa, Anne Satera,  Karyll Rio and Chelsea Katrina Akiatan, Tricia Opon and Andriod Rose Tingson (badminton secondary girls  doubles), boxers John Niño Vega (light mosquito category), Lloyd Jabez Antoque (light paper weight) and Vicente Sios-e Jr. (pin weight).

Also chipping in golds were, Lyrden Laborte and Neil John Navarette (badminton elementary  doubles event), gymnast Daniela Reggie Dela Pisa (clubs), Angela Cabaral (tennis secondary girls singles) and Zojen Prajes (secondary girls taekwondo heavyweight division).

“We were badly hurt by our failure to win golds in the ballgames, especially in basketball and football where we normally win,” said Yntig.

Yntig said the Olympic Medal System also affected Cviraa’s ranking. The Palaro adapted the medal system last year after using the points system for so many years.

Yntig said one of the options to consider that may help Cviraa recover from the lackluster performance is to adjust the schedule of regional Cviraa meet, whose winners compose the delegation in the Palaro.

“We used to hold the Cviraa in December but about three years ago, it was moved to February. We will try to see if we can return to the original schedule since February is too close to Palaro. We want to give our athletes enough time to prepare,” said  Yntig, who is also the  Education Program Supervisor of the Department of Education in Central Visayas (DepEd-7).