Gatorade Philippines helps refurbish UST beach volleyball court

On Monday, the University of Santo Tomas, with the assistance of Gatorade Philippines, reopened the beach volleyball court on its campus grounds along España in Manila.

Gracing the occasion were officials from Gatorade Philippines, led by its Senior Product Manager Mikey Rosales, as well as officials from Royal Pontifical University, led by their Athletic Director Fr. Ermito de Sagon, O.P.

Gatorade Philippines' Mikey Rosales with UST officials, led by UST AD Fr. de Sagon

UST was the winner among the seven UAAP schools that participated in the 2012 Gatorade UAAP Digital Activation "Fuel Your Battle" Application download contest.



The contest had students of the participating universities to download the corresponding posters and cover photos of their own representatives or varsity players. The school with the highest number of downloads when the end of the basketball season of UAAP Season 75 secured a sports grant from Gatorade Philippines, to help and support the student-athletes in fueling their game, so to speak.

With the victory, according to Fr. de Sagon, the university looked into using the grant to refurbish the beach volleyball court. The reopened court is still not up to the international standards with regards to its size, but the school is looking into the possibility of expanding it to meet said guidelines. The eventual plan is to have the UAAP beach volleyball tournament hosted inside the UST campus.

The tournament has been hosted in the previous years at the Caloocan campus of the University of the East.

To highlight the reopening, an exhibition beach volleyball match took place with UST Lady Tigresses Maru Banaticla and Ingrid Reyes facing teammates Pam Lastimosa and Mela Tunay. Pam and Mela beat Maru and Ingrid in three sets, 1-5, 5-3 and 7-5.

From L-R: Marsh of Gatorade PH, Mela Tunay, Pam Lastimosa, Ingrid Reyes, Maru Banaticla, Rick Olivares and Mikey Rosales

Maru formed half of the back-to-back winning tandem for UST in beach volleyball.

Gatorade Philippines continues to show support to the upcoming UAAP season, with Jeric Teng being UST's lone member in the roster of G Rising Stars.