The Visayas Beach Ultimate Open 2019. A New Venue for Beach Ultimate Fans in the Country!
I was suppose to be covering a different tournament that weekend. But for some reason, things do change overtime. So I sent a message to Rhodnie Teves, Vice President of the NFDA and PFDA board member if they're still willing to adopt me for the weekend in Dumaguete. With no hesitation, Mr. Teves said yes, we closed the deal and talked about the arrangements. After a few weeks, I found myself walking down the Rizal Boulevard in Dumaguete with my camera bag on my back, with newly formatted SD cards and fully charged batteries ready to tackle day 1 of the first ever Visayas Beach Ultimate Open!
I was excited to go back to Dumaguete for the first time this year. Good food. Laid back environment. The City of Gentle People is perfect to my liking. And when we talk about Ultimate, Dumaguete has some of the best athletes in the country. And it seems like every year, the city and its neighboring towns produces young athletes that has the potential to dominate the game. And now that they have the support of the city government, expect the talents from this city to double up its numbers in the coming years.
The mood was electric on day 1. The sun was high with cool breeze brushing on my face. I saw a few teams with new talents throwing Frisbees to each other with a lot of enthusiasm on their faces. There were a lot of excitement during that beautiful Saturday morning in Dumzville. So, after a moments of delay because of the Dumaguete Firefighters giving the playing fields some early morning showers, the first pulls of the Visayas Beach Ultimate Open 2019 were in the air and the games were off to a great start.
Though you can immediately see which teams will go all the way the final stretch, the games were actually quite a lot of fun. Four teams played for the Women´s Division. Six teams for Men´s and six team battling for the Mixed Division trophy. The tournament organizers provided three, 4v4 playing pitches at the boulevard between the ocean, hotel establishments, and restaurants: like the famous Sans Rival and The Honeycomb where you can get the coldest Pale Pilsen in Dumaguete. And of course, the venue is just a walk away from the Dumaguete market where you can buy Puto with native chocolate and peanut butter on top for breakfast. Always a highlight of my trip in Dumaguete.
Ok. Enough food talk. Let´s talk Ultimate.
As we all know, Dumaguete city is the home of one of the best teams Filipinos have ever seen, And that is Team Extreme. And during the VBUO weekend, Extreme showed everyone why they are one of the top teams in the country, not just on grass but also on Sand. The Extreme Women´s team dominated the Women´s division with their young squad lead by CM Absin, Angel Callao and Angelli Luzuriaga, three of the top young female athletes Negros Oriental has to offer. These young core worked together all weekend long, giving their Ate´s in Team Blacklist a hard time in the Women´s finals.
The Men´s team, on the other hand, was composed of players who do not need any introduction and shenanigans. Dada, Kboy, Bao, Jak-Jak, Neco to name a few gave us a show during the finals against Blacklist, a team who are now working their way up the ladder as one of the most active and stronger teams in the region but fell short to grab the win against Extreme.
On the Mixed division, two teams made their presence known during the VBUO weekend as Team Northside Squad showed their athleticism and run & gun style of play, making their way to face a seasoned veteran team Kwarkernz who silently crushed other teams all weekend and all the way to the finals. And as always, experience wins games.
It was an absolutely exciting weekend in Dumaguete, witnessing some fantastic Beach Ultimate action for two days. But what´s more exciting is the future of Ultimate and sports in general in the city of Dumguete. When I talked to Mr. Manu Saldivar, President of Negros Oriental Sports Confederation, their plans for sports in Dumaguete is golden. Better facilities. Better coaches. And whats good about it, Beach Ultimate is part of their future planning. They are working on having designated playing pitches for Beach Ultimate. What you are seeing now are just temporary (they played in beach volleyball courts as you can see the green posts in the middle of two pitches). Soon they will have their own home beach turf to play on. And you know what that means. Dumaguete will soon be a force to reckon with on sand. Or MAYBE they can finally host Beach Nationals in the future. We never know what’s going to happen in the next coming years.
Congratulations to the NFDA for organizing a very successful and fun weekend in Rizal Boulevard, Dumaguete. It is always nice to see a group of young folks working together to make an event extra special.
Beach Ultimate fans, This is The Visayas Beach Ultimate.
See you all next year!
For more photos:
0 comments: