Knights to fortify their armor

ncaa,org,ph

Letran College management plans to assign additional security personnel to its men's basketball team following the shooting incident involving the Knights' backup guard Franz Dysam and girlfriend, Joanne Sordan, on Saturday.

Letran Athletic Director Fr. Victor Calvo, O.P., said they want to assure the safety of their players adding that he would also suggest the same precautionary measure to the nine other National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) schools.

"It could happen to anybody. We're planning to put additional security personnel with the team every game," said Calvo.

He also wanted to get assurance from officials of The Arena that security will also be tightened around the playing venue.

"San Juan police provided two security escorts to us after the incident. We need to make sure these players are secured since some of them are still teenagers," said Calvo.

Calvo said Letran officials are letting San Juan police do their investigation.

"There's also information that the gunmen had been following them since they left The Arena after the game," said Calvo. "These are all police matters now. We just let them do their job. They [San Juan police] are pursuing two leads and they gave a one-month deadline to solve the case."

This is the second shooting incident that involved a collegiate basketball cager since Ginebra's Mac Baracael was shot in 2008 near the Far Eastern University gym in Morayta, Manila when he was still playing for the Tamaraws. The case is still unsolved.

Dysam and Sordan, who were driving the gray Nissan Sentra (ZLA-176), were gunned down by a riding-in-tandem motorcycle on the corner of N. Domingo and Katibusan streets near Araneta Avenue in Barangay Rivera in San Juan City a few hours after Letran's 61-53 win Lyceum on Saturday.

The five-foot-nine playmaker managed to rush Sordan to the nearby San Juan Medical Center but the latter was declared dead on arrival after suffering a fatal gunshot wound to her chest.