Back to drawing board for Team Lakay after 2017 letdown

Team Lakay coach Mark Sangiao. Photo by Randolph B. Leongson/ INQUIRER.net

BANGKOK —It hasn’t been the best year for Team Lakay.

With a string of losses to end the year, none more painful than Eduard Folayang losing his ONE Lightweight Championship last November, it’s easy to assume that Benguet-based stable has lost its winning touch.

But it’s not the first time that Team Lakay has experienced a skid like this, and coach Mark Sangiao is more than confident that his Igorot warriors will bounce back in 2018.

“We’ve been here before, so we’ll go back to basics and study where we lacked,” he said.

Sangiao cited the disastrous 2015 campaign for Team Lakay, which prompted his fighters to focus on their weaknesses that led to their glory run in 2016.

“We’ll do individual assessments on what we need to work on,” he said.

Top lightweight contenders Folayang and Honorio Banario, flyweights Danny Kingad and Geje Eustaquio, bantamweight Kevin Belingon, and strawweights Joshua Pacio, April Osenio, and Gina Iniong are all looking to recover from the funk and put themselves in a position to challenge the champions in their respective weight divisions next year.

However, the first step in getting back on the saddle is pinpointing the problem, and Sangiao admitted that his fighters fell to the trap of complacency.

“I think we relaxed a bit, that’s why you can’t deny those results. We need to focus more on our training and the skills we need to develop on our fighters,” said Sangiao.