By REYNALD MAGALLON
The Sibol national team delivered the Philippines’ first gold medal in the esports events in the 32nd Southeast Asian Games after the Wild Rift team capped the tournament sweep with a 3-1 victory over Vietnam on Sunday, May 7 at the Nagaworld: Olympia Mall in Phnom Penh in Cambodia.
The Nationals backed by Nigma Galaxy members Chammy Nazarrea, Golden Hart Dajao, Aaron Bingay, Justin Tan and Reniel Angara opened the competition with a 3-0 sweep of Singapore before authoring a 3-2 reverse sweep against Vietnam in the upper bracket finals.
Vietnam arranged a rematch against the Philippines in the grand finals after sweeping Singapore in the lower bracket finals but went on only to get thrashed by the Filipinos in the finale.
An objective-centric approach in the opening game of the series set the tone for Sibol as it opened Game 1 with four unanswered kills to quickly seize control of Game 1. The team then kept the Vietnamese at bay, drawing first blood with a 14-7 win.
Game 2 then just saw a repeat of the opening game story as the Filipinos dominated the Vietnamese from start to finish. A 16th minute clash for the Baron Nashor went to Sibol’s favor after scoring a three-man wipe before the team went for the Nexus siege moments after for a 20-11 wini.
Sibol got the chance to close out the series in the third game but the Vietnamese managed to recover from a huge deficit in the early game. That however did not bother the Filipinos who went for the kill in Game 4.
