A glimpse of how clutch players think.
She wasn’t about to let her team fall out of medal contention.
The Philippine women’s national football team kept its chances of improving on its bronze medal finish in last year’s Southeast Asian Games, thanks to Sarina Bolden. On Saturday night at the RCAF Old Stadium in Phnom Penh, the 26-year-old forward scored a last-second header off a free kick from Sara Eggesvik to give the Filipinas a 1-0 win over Malaysia in the 32nd edition of the regional meet.
Having lost its first match against Myanmar, the Filipinas faced the pressure of notching a victory over Malaysia to stay alive for a podium finish. In almost the entire match, however, both teams failed to score. A scoreless draw loomed.
Until Bolden happened.
Unfazed, she got even more focused on lifting her squad to victory right when the opportunity presented itself during crunch time.
“Just telling myself, ‘I need to do anything I can to score this with anything but my hands. I don’t care what part of my body. It’s going in, it’s going in,’” Sarina revealed during the postgame press conference.
Aside from skill, self-belief and persistence were also keys in pulling off the much-needed goal for the Philippines.
“[I was thinking about] getting myself in a good position to score. Luckily, it was a beautiful cross. And [I was] able to get that ball down. After multiple headers that were going up, I was just trying to head that down,” she continued.
The Filipinas will hope to see more of Bolden’s heroics as they take on Vietnam on Tuesday.
(GM)