By MARTIN A. SADONGDONG
THE Philippine bowling team got off to a bad start as the men’s group also fell short in its podium bid in the opening of the 30th Southeast Asian (SEA) Games Bowling Championships held at the Coronado Lanes, Starmall EDSA in Mandaluyong City on Tuesday.
Eighteen-year-old Patrick Neil Nuqui turned out to be the best performer after starting explosively only to crumble in the sixth and final round before hundreds of broken-hearted Filipino fans.
Nuqui eventually wounded up at fifth place with 1310 pinfalls.
Malaysia’s Timmy Tan used a strong start to collect the gold with 1334 pinfalls.
He was followed by Thailand’s Annop Arromsaranon (1331) and Singapore’s Cheah Ray Han (1316) who took the bronze medal.
Nuqui had a roller-coaster start with rounds of 237, 194, 218 and 201 in the first four rounds.
However, he had a huge fifth round where he collected 257 pinfalls. This catapulted him to the fourth place after being down from the 12th spot.
Nuqui, the winner of the gold medal at the 1st Philippine bowling Federation (PBF) National Matchplay Open Championships in January 2019, thrilled the Filipino crowd as he trailed Arromsaranon — then sitting at third place — by only 36 pinfalls before the start of the final round.
To the chagrin of the crowd, Nuqui succumbed to intense pressure and misfired the rest of the way.
Merwin Tan and Frederick Ong also faltered and so was Kenneth Chua who failed to sustain his good opening rounds.
Chua was at third place during the first two rounds only to register a personal-low 193 pinfalls in the fourth round.
Earlier, the Philippine women’s bowling team also failed to deliver in the women’s singles match.
Veteran kegler Maria Liza del Rosario led the team with a six-game series of 1213 pinfalls for an eight place finish.
