The Nursing Women’s Basketball Team: Another Step Backward

By Alfred Garrido

Last August when the biggest sports spectacle in UST opened, team Nursing seemed to carry every piece of high caliber guns, loaded with sharp bullets, on their waists. It is as if the Nazi armies have awakened once more with the chaos brought by the World Wars. This has been the picture of how team Nursing would dominate and conquer.

Last October, the first charge to greatness ended on a retreat as the mighty spikers of the college suffered a last minute nuclear bombing by determined opponents. That leaves spaces for filling. Now that the calendars flipped its pages to November and December, somebody’s Christmas must be in shades of bloody red. That leaves the question of who will be slapped of burning torch in the midst of the snow flaked battle field, this time the hard court.

Led by senior Lena Althea Cruz, the Nursing Women’s Basketball team survived the group stage of the UST Goodwill Games and advanced straight to the quarter finals. Being tangled up with teams like Engineering and Architecture did not stop the green and gold cagers in setting up a rematch with Commerce, the team which gave them a beating on that November 22 opening juggernaut.

With high spirits and bitter memory of their first meeting, Nursing has never been more determined in tearing the yellow-themed amazons apart to force their way into the final four of the tournament for the first time in recent years. But the claws of history have been sharpened prior to the clash and, as the famous line goes, history repeats itself, this time even worse. Despite the noble efforts from Cruz, junior sensation Pamela Ayson, and the rest of the gang, Nursing spilled their diesels allowing the flaming Commerce team to blast its way to victory, 87-20, at the nearly jammed P. Noval gymnasium.

The whole four periods have been crucial for Nursing, seeking ways to improve their defense and execute plays. But the stunning might of Commerce has been there the whole time nearly breaking every Nursing possession and grabbing boards out of no where. Commerce’s defense had been too sticky that Nursing was in full restraints the whole time. Thereafter, when the fog was cleared, it was another hard loss for the St. Martin de Pores based cagers.

Another chance may have gone away and another team may have been out for now, but the nobility gained by the Nursing Women’s Basketball team has been their ultimate prize and a prize for the college to own. Being part of the ‘Great Eight’ was never easy. It is never hard either, it is simply deadly. The brilliance and strength they poured down in surviving the group stage is enough to call them great. After all, they have been proven winners this season giving the College of Architecture quite a beating. And most importantly,