Eastridge, Valley move to semis in Fed League

MANILA, Philippines – Eastridge and Valley turned close matches against separate opponents with blowout victories at home to reach the Final Four of the Men’s Federation Golf League over the weekend.

After yielding a 2-3 decision on the road, Eastridge threw the full weight of its deep bench at Orchard in their hosting turn of the quarterfinal duel and posted to a 4-1 victory to secure a return trip to the semifinals with an overall 6-5 result.

Up next this weekend for the title-hungry Eastridge squad is Wack Wack, the defending champion which made it straight to the semis after emerging as the No. 2 team in the eliminations.

Valley also remained in contention for the championship after ousting Riviera.

It was 2.5-2.5 at Riviera but the result the next day was completely different at Valley where the Antipolo team scored a succession of runaway wins in the greensomes, best ball and aggregate formats to wrap up the win that ushered them to the semis.

Valley now heads to a semis meeting this weekend with Canlubang, the team which took the other outright semis berth as the eliminations topnotcher.

Eastridge reshuffled its men at home and everyone responded with Ayi Beech/King Sumulong (greensomes) and Jung Soo-park/AJ Cornejo (high-low) securing the first two points early with 7&5 and 6&5 victories in their respective formats.

Then came the contributions of Junnel Roxas/Sumio Watanabe in best-ball and Tak Dong-jin/Alex Ignacio in scramble with 4&2 and 3&2 decisions that sealed the victory for Eastridge and rendered the aggregate match of Dong Sarmiento and Koji Yazuma of no-bearing.

Wins by RJ Barretto/Justin Limjap (greensomes), Adrian Mauricio/Butch Bakunawa (best-ball) and Jeff Bernaldez/Damas Wong (aggregate) forged a deadlock for Valley and the draws secured by Paco Puyat/Chino Raymundo in scramble and Zaldy Villa/Edmund Yee in high-low decided the 4-1 outcome.