Blocking the near back-to-back title run of the Social Science (SS) Dragons, the School of Engineering and Architecture (SEA) Tigers claimed the podium in the Palarong Atenista 2025 Men’s Scrabble tournament.

This year’s round-robin format let every cluster battle tile for tile, with the SS Dragons outplaying the SEA Tigers in a close call, 319-315, in the second round. 

In the final round, SEA Tigers’ Rico Bien Palacay redeemed himself and delivered a commanding 318 points over the SS Dragons’ Cian Athen Sy, who scored 270.

“It felt nice that in the finals I ended up having to face off the person that I lost to in [the] round robin. So, like, what I would like to say—it just felt like it came out of a storybook,” he stated.

SEA Tigers’ Palacay, a first-year Civil Engineering student, also shared his struggles in preparing for the tournament and how it reflected his earlier setbacks.

“It’s just kinda funny that throughout all of training we’ve only met two times, and when [the] contest proper came around, I was pretty bad at keeping track of things. After Game 2, I was pretty much struggling on what to write, and I actually lost that game by four points.”

He added that he took these setbacks as his learning moment and applied them in his succeeding matches. 

“But that is something that I ended up learning how to do because it was pretty much Scrabble customs.”

Palacay revealed that the semifinal round against the School of Education (SOE) Sharks was the most compelling match for him.

“The semis was a very interesting story because he was like the best defensive Scrabble player that I met in the tournament,” he recalled.

The final leaderboard read SS Dragons in second place, followed by the Business and Management (B&M) Vipers in third. 

The championship match was held in F213 Multipurpose Room, Finster Building, on September 28.