For the first time in their history, the Philippine women's national football team has won the gold medal in the Southeast Asian Games -- and they got it done in the most dramatic of ways.
The Filipinas outlasted defending champion Vietnam in a heart-stopping penalty shootout, 6-5, to rule the 2025 edition of the tournament, Wednesday evening at the Chonburi Stadium in Chonburi, Thailand.
"We never want to end on a loss," said skipper Hali Long, who extended her record by winning a 101st cap in the final. "We were going to win bronze, or we were going to win gold. We gave ourselves no choice."
For the second straight match, the Filipinas had to play an additional 30 minutes, and even the extra time was not enough to settle the score between the two finalists, with neither side finding a goal.
The gold medal match went to a penalty shootout, and the Filipinas showed remarkable poise with their first five takers all converting their attempts. Vietnam matched them kick for kick, however, sending the shootout to a sudden death.
Veteran Jackie Sawicki stepped up to bury a clutch penalty, leaving the match at the hands of Filipinas goal-keeper Olivia McDaniel.
McDaniel, who came up with save after save throughout the tournament, rose to the occasion one more time as she blocked the shot of Vietnam's Trần Thị Thu, before kicking the ball into the stands as her teammates rushed her in celebration.
"Honestly, I didn't want to do it [a penalty shootout] again," said McDaniel. "But I knew we all had a part to play, and we knew at the end of the day, the job needed to be done, and so we just rallied behind each other."
"We knew there was nothing else but the gold. So I think that was pretty much our mindset going through the entire game," she added.
It was the latest milestone for the Filipinas, a team that has repeatedly written Philippine sporting history in the past few years -- including qualifying for the FIFA Women's World Cup 2023 and lifting the AFF Women's Championship at home in 2022.
The triumph also gave a golden send-off to veteran goal-keeper Inna Palacios, who announced before the match that she is set to retire from the Philippine national women's football team after many years of service with the program.
This victory is made more special by the tough road that the Filipinas took just to get to the final. They dropped their tournament opener against Myanmar, putting them in a must-win situation against Vietnam in the group stage.
They stunned the defending champion at the death, 1-0, to keep their campaign alive, then clobbered Malaysia, 6-0, to barge into the semis. There, they had to play the host nation, and endured an exhausting 120-minute battle against Thailand before winning in a penalty shootout to advance to the gold medal match for the first time ever.
They again had to take on Vietnam -- the four-time defending gold medalists who were seeking a ninth SEA Games title. The reigning champions appeared to have gone ahead in the 29th minute, when Nguyá»…n Thị BÃch Thùy beat McDaniel, but the goal was controversially disallowed for offside.
From there, chances came few and far between for both teams. The Filipinas had a golden opportunity a minute into extra time, when Alexa Pino found Jael Guy near the back post, but the latter's header was off target.
The Filipinas also had to make plenty of adjustments after veteran defenders Jessika Cowart and Sofia Wunsch had to be subbed out due to injuries.
Ultimately, the 120 minutes were not enough, and for the second straight match the Filipinas had to go through a nervy penalty shootout on their way to history.
Guy, Pino, Long, Angie Beard, and Ari Markey were all on target, but the Vietnamese also showed their poise in sending McDaniel the wrong way in their attempts.
It was ultimately Sawicki -- the team's veteran midfielder -- who blasted her shot into the top left corner for the Filipinas' sixth penalty of the night.
And McDaniel -- who has been a hero for the Philippines in previous penalty shootouts -- got her hands on Thu's attempt to clinch one of the greatest nights in the country's footballing history.
Long said she had every confidence that they would win the penalty shootout, especially after watching the 18-year-old Guy bury her spot kick to get them started.
"I mean we practice our penalties, so. As soon as we went to PKs, I knew it was ours," said the veteran centerback.
It was indeed theirs, as the Filipinas completed a difficult journey to the top of the podium. Despite losing their first game and being grouped with the defending champions, they got the job done.
"We did not lose our first game to lose in the end," said Long. "We dug out of a hole that we put ourselves in, and we fought and we crawled and we did everything we could in our power to get to the semifinals, get to the finals and put it away."
