THE UST Teletigers Esports Club (UST TGR) brought home the silver medal in the inaugural UAAP Season 87 esports VALORANT tournament on Friday, Aug. 16.
UST TGR missed out on the UAAP esports title after crumbling to the DLSU Viridis Arcus in a clean sweep, 2-0, at the Areté, Ateneo de Manila University.
Slow pacing worked wonders for DLSU, starting the first match in Icebox with a 2-0 advantage. However, UST responded with a swift 3-0 run thanks to a clutch ninja defuse by UST’s Damien Santos.
Viridis Arcus quickly regained dominance after commanding the map with a 12-2 whiplash to lead the series, 13-5.
With Bind as the second map, Viridis Arcus immediately fired out the gates with a 4-1 start. The Teletigers answered with a 3-1 blitz to get closer by one point, 5-4.
The Taft-based squad’s disciplined anticipation forced the España squad to be more aggressive in the following rounds.
This allowed DLSU to exploit the gaps of UST, ultimately leading to successful spike plants and go up by six points, 10-4.
Viridis Arcus, made up of Finals MVP Aaron Sablay, Derrick Ong, Miguel Dy IV, Lucas Gruenberg, Gerardo Corpus II and Lance Gacayan, eventually closed out the match to win gold, 13-7.
“We are extremely happy with our result. It was a good run for a team that only practiced for around two weeks,” Teletigers’ VALORANT coach Brent Santiago told The Flame.
“For everyone who has been a part of the Teletigers ever since its League of Legends golden days, it’s been 8-9 years of waiting before esports in UAAP happened,” Santiago added.
UST was represented by John Cuaresma, Damien Santos, Carl Baldovia, Nathan Manuta, Angelo Ysibido and Erl Mariano.
The Mobile Legends: Bang Bang tournament will begin on Aug. 17, Saturday. F – Nicole Atuan with reports from Christian Querol
