UST Tigers are UAAP Season 69 overall champs

University of Santo Tomas is the UAAP (Universities Athletic Association of the Philippines) Season 69's overall champion. The Tigers, the perennial overall titlist in the tournament, bagged 11 championships in 26 events to once again rule the UAAP for the 33rd time, according to an official statement from the league Tuesday. UST also posted eight second-place finishes, two third-place, one fourth-place and wound up no worse than fifth in two events to garner 331 points. At far second to the Tigers, who highlighted their season with a Cinderella finish in men's basketball, was University of the Philippines (UP), which could only win two titles but built its 254-point season performance on strong finishes in the other events in the 13-sport UAAP calendar. The statement said that Far Eastern University (FEU), which participated in only 18 events but still managed to sweep the tiles in athletics and badminton and ruled men's chess, table tennis and volleyball and women's football, was third with 218 points. Rounding out the Season 69 finish were Ateneo, fourth with 209 points built basically around its champion women fencers, general host University of the East (UE), fifth with 177 points also highlighted by a men's fencing conquest, Adamson University, sixth with 95 points marked by its domination of women's softball and National University (NU) seventh with 48 points and a promising performance in men's baseball. Besides men's and women's basketball, UST, which will host Season 70 next school year, swept lawn tennis and taekwondo and won the titles in men's baseball, football and judo and women's chess, swimming, table tennis and volleyball. The Tigers were runners-up in men's and women's athletics, men's fencing, swimming and table tennis and women's badminton, football and judo. They were third-placers in women's softball and men's volleyball, wound up fourth in women's fencing and were fifth in men's badminton and chess. UP booked its title conquests in men's swimming and women's judo and had strong second-place finishes in men's chess, judo, lawn tennis and volleyball and women's fencing, lawn tennis, softball, swimming and taekwondo. FEU fared strongly in all the events it took part in—second in men's football and women's basketball, chess, table tennis and volleyball—and fared no worse than fifth in the other disciplines. The UAAP awards 15 points for the champion team, 12 points for second place, 10 for third, eighth for fourth, six for fifth, four for sixth and two for seventh. UST and the other team and individual awardees will be feted during the UAAP Annual Awards on March 25 at the UE Theater in Manila. -GMANews.TV