MEDAN, NORTH SUMATRA?I marvel at the resiliency of the young.

How fast and easily they forget about pain and frustration.

The day after what Perry Martinez called their ?undeserved defeat? to the Malaysian cagebelles, the Xtreme-RP girls were back in their element?cheerful and excited over the prospect of shopping.

Since the girls could not be booked on any other return flight to Manila, they had to stay one day longer in Medan.

They had reserved this one last day to shop. They were not allowed to go out during the competitions, so they could stay focused on the task at hand.

The girls joked and sang as the bus headed for the malls. If you were observant, you will not fail to notice their red and swollen knuckles.

* * *

It?s hard to imagine that only the day before, these girls were crying their hearts out in the locker room of the Gor Angsapura. They slammed the door, threw their bags on the floor, punched and kicked the concrete walls?imagining perhaps that they were flogging the referee from Kazakhstan.

Everyone was shouting and crying.

?Why did they tell us to play here when they would only cheat us! We played our hearts out, only to be cheated,? they sobbed.

The girls? wild frenzy was halted only when Perry Martinez came storming in, his face red as a beet.

?You won that game! They can?t take that away from you!? an emotional Perry said in a shrill voice.

As soon as he had made the pronouncement, Perry rushed out of the room, obviously in an attempt to hide his tears. But it was too late. Even before he could turn around, tears were already streaming down his face.

?From rage,? he would tell us later.

Everyone fell quiet after that scene. Assistant coach Joey Mendoza immediately asked physical therapist Albert Rolle to follow Perry, afraid that he might dock the referee or suffer a heart attack.

Albert returned to say that Perry had already calmed down.

The sobbing inside the locker room resumed, although the shouting somewhat abated.

Joey?s eyes were also wet with tears. He wiped them off as he tried to appease the girls.

For once, the bus was quiet as the girls drove to back to the hotel. Everyone had lost their appetite for lunch.

* * *

I knew something was amiss when Perry jumped down from the spectators? gallery to the RP bench in the fourth quarter of the game against Malaysia. All through our first five games in the series, he was seated in the gallery.

He told us later that he had avoided sitting on the RP bench, so that if he lost control and shouted at the referee, the bench would not be given a technical.

Less than two minutes before the final buzzer, it looked certain that the game would be ours.

But the Kazakhstan referee burst our bubble. He called three consecutive traveling violations on sweet-shooting Raiza Rose Palmera, who was wreaking havoc on the Malaysians.

The last one was crucial. It was called in the dying seconds of the game, the score tied at 69-all and the ball in our possession.

?It was a tabla-panalo situation for us,? Raiza said. ?I had been doing the same move all-tournament long and all-game long but was never called for a violation until the last two minutes of this game.?

Malaysia converted one of the charity shots and missed the other. We lost.

* * *

Perry and Joey rushed to the officials? table after the game.

?Are you happy?? he asked the Kazakhstan referee, looking him straight in the eye. The referee looked away. Perry was about to walk away when he saw our girls crying.

He walked back to the ref. ?See what you did. Our girls are crying. We lost because you had been so unfair?!

Perry said he should have been the last person to blame the referee. As the SBP technical commission chair, it was his duty to protect the refs and to always give them the benefit of the doubt.

?But in this case, I have absolutely no doubt that that game was ours, if not for that Kazakh ref.?

(PERSONAL: Happy birthday to Qatar Basketball?s Rhea Navarro.)