MANILA – The Philippine women’s football team booked a seat to the semifinal round of the 2019 Southeast Asian Games women’s football after a 5-0 drubbing of Malaysia on Friday night at the Biñan Football Stadium in Laguna.
Sarina Bolden completed a hat trick while Alisha Del Campo and Eva Madarang added a conversion each.
The Malditas ended the group stage with five points to move to the semifinals round.
The Filipino-American Bolden kicked off the scoring for the Malditas after squeezing one in from close range in the 24th minute. Del Campo doubled the lead 14 minutes later with a header.
Bolden, who plays in the Swedish league Sandvikens IF, added another goal in the 41st minute and scored on a lovely header of a corner in stoppage time for a 4-0 halftime lead.
Madarang then went for the kill for the Malditas with a conversion at the waning moments of the match.
“We were confident that we can win this game but we were not sure how Malaysia would play over the past two months,” said Malditas head coach Let Dimzon. “Since napag-aralan na namin ‘yung mga players, the more that we have chances, mas maraming chance na maka-score kami.”
The Malditas will face either Group B teams Vietnam, Thailand, or Indonesia, to be determined at the close of the preliminary on December 2 in the semifinals, which will be played on December 5./PN
