UST on track to winning UAAP overall championship

Again, University of Santo Tomas is looking forward to winning the UAAP's overall championship with the Tigers reigning in eight of the 12 events, including the men's basketball tournament. UST brought home the titles in men's and women's basketball and taekwondo, then reigned in women's chess, swimming and table tennis and men's judo to lead the seven-school Season 69 with 162 overall points. The league gives 15 points for a first-place finish in an event; 12 points for second; 10 for third; eight for fourth; six for fifth; four for sixth; and two for seventh. So far, six of the sports on the UAAP seniors calendar have already been played in the first semester: basketball, chess, judo, swimming, table tennis and taekwondo. University of the Philippines gained the men's swimming and women's judo titles to pose as the only challenger to UST at second spot with 126 points. Following UP in the standings are: Far Eastern University (men's chess and table tennis champion) in third with 92 points; Ateneo fourth with 90 points; host University of the East (UE) fifth with 82 points; Adamson U sixth with 38 points; and National U (NU), already outdoing itself at this point in the season, seventh with 24 points. Last year, the seniors' order of finish was UST (302), UP (244), De La Salle (234), FEU (192), Ateneo (180), UE (166), Adamson (87) and NU (21). UST is also poised to taking the juniors' division, posting 66 points based on its title victories in table tennis and taekwondo. At second spot is UE by a mere point. UE won the title in juniors chess. Ateneo's juniors ran third in the first-semester overall rankings despite winning juniors basketball and boys swimming—because UST and UE fared better in other sports they have not won—with 58 points, followed by UP, the girls' swimming champion, with 49. The same number of points are awarded in the juniors division as it does in the seniors' competition. Second semester sports in the UAAP calendar include men's and women's athletics, badminton, fencing, football, lawn tennis and volleyball and men's baseball and women's softball. Scheduled for the second half of the season in juniors play are athletics and volleyball. - GMANews.TV