GENERAL SANTOS CITY—Swimmers Patricia Santor, Catherine FJ Cruz and Sophia Garcia emerged as the most bemedalled athletes after day 5 of the 2025 Batang Pinoy National Championships here on Thursday.
The 17-year-old Santor won the most medals for Manila’s swim team as she claimed her sixth gold medal, anchoring the Big City to the 4×50 meter medley relay honors in the 14-17 year-old girls’ action at the Antonio Acharon aquatics center.
Santor, a University of Santo Tomas student, along with teammates Christine Uy, Naomi Sy and Eliana Rodriguez, ruled final event of the meet in two minutes and 8.86 seconds.
“It’s a fantastic output,” said Manila swim team head coach Cyrus Alcantara, after Santor’s crew outperformed Bacolod (2:09.25) and Mandaue (2:30.25) for second and third places, respectively.
The win allowed Manila to overtake defending champion Pasig for the overall leadership with a total of 77 medals on 29 golds, 26 silver and 22 bronzes as of 4:30 p.m.
Baguio City is in third with 62 medals on a 27-16-19 gold-silver-bronze output.
“It was a good swim, even if I did not get records in some of them,” said Santor, who actually went home with seven medals after getting silver in the 200-meter breaststroke.
Santor’s other golds came in the 200-meter individual medley, the 100-meter butterfly and the 200 meter butterfly, along with the team event of the 4×50-meter freestyle relay.
She broke the record of Jasmine Mojdeh(28.67 seconds) in the 50-meter butterfly at 28.67 seconds.
Coached by her father Wilfredo, Cruz had five golds, after team Mabalacat settled for 15th place in the same event where Santor and her squadmates won, but she aced last individual event, the 200-meter freestyle in 2:15, finishing ahead of Uy and Joanna Avergonzado.
“It was almost perfect for me,” said Cruz, whose other golds came from the 100-meter freestyle, 200-meter backstroke, the 100-meter backstroke, and a record-breaking feat in the 50-meter backstroke.
Malabon’s Garra swept her five events, with her final gold coming from the 12-13 year old girls’ 200-meter freestyle, to go with first-place finishes in the 200-meter 100-meter backstroke and record-breakers in the 50-meter and 200-meter backstroke.
In athletics, Krisha Mae Tajarros of Leyte bagged her third gold medal off her first-place finish in the 1500-meter run of the girls’ under 16 action.
Meanwhile, Quezon City defeated Taguig City, 21-16, to capture the boys’ 3×3 basketball tournament title at the Holy Trinity College compound.
Incoming FEU-Diliman Baby Tamaraws Jastien Dagcutan, Anton Lopez, and Duke Andrew Santos, and Garder College’s Dominic Joseph Avila clinched the 3×3 crown in the tournament, which drew 60 teams.
QC made it to the finals after Lopez unloaded a game-winning two-pointer to beat Bacolod Tay Tung-backed Negros Occidental, 21-20.
