The Philippines is set to bag its first medal in the esports events in the 2023 Southeast Asian Games after the Sibol national team assured itself of at least a silver medal finish in the League of Legends: Wild Rift after taking down defending champion Vietnam in the upper bracket finals.

Sibol Wild Rift team poses for photo after advancing to the finals. (Sibol photo)

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Sibol, composed of Nigma Galaxy players Chammy Nazarrea, Golden Hart Dajao, Aaron Bingay, Justin Tan and Reniel Angara, showed unwavering resolve and authored a stunning 3-2 reverse sweep of the heavily favored Vietnamese at the Nagaworld: Olympia Mall on Saturday, May 6. 

Surrendering the first two games, the Filipinos just refused to give up the fight with Tan leading the charge in Games 3 and 4. Sibol began its bid for a comeback in Game 3 where Tan along with Nazarrea dictated the tempo from start to finish to take a morale-boosting 22-11 win.

Sibol then seemed to have finally settled down after scoring its first point of the series as the Filipinos kept their foot on the gas pedal and continued to feed off the momentum in Game 4.

The Filipinos looked more confident and put crispier executions and rotations to demolish the Vietnamese, 14-1, and score the series equalizer.

Seeing the morale of their opponents going low after failing to close out the series in the last two games, the Filipinos then showed no let up in the decider as Dajao, Angara and Nazarrea all joined hands in the convincing 25-9 Game 5 win.

Sibol also swept Singapore, 3-0, early in the day to jumpstart its campaign. The Filipinos now await their opponents in the Grand Finals which will be determined by the winner of the lower bracket finals clash between Vietnam and either Singapore or host Cambodia.