Unheralded Blue Eagles pitch in to beat Adamson
“Hindi mo nakikita sa stat sheet ang ginagawa nila Gywne at Von” said Kiefer Ravena in the post match press con after Ateneo brushed aside Adamson on Sunday to win their fourth straight game.
With the 79-66 result at the Araneta Coliseum, The Blue Eagles improve to 5-4. Although Ravena and Ryan Buenafe churned out eighteen points apiece, Bo Perasol's bench served up quality minutes too.
Nico Elorde was good for nine points, while third-year swingman Von Pessumal scored six points in eleven minutes of play.
“These guys are all capable of playing” said Perasol afterwards of his second-liners. “I always emphasize that when your time comes, you have to deliver.”
Pessumal impressed with a few key plays scattered throughout the game. In the second quarter, with Ateneo leading 25-18, the former Baby Eaglet scored on a drive, hanging in the air like Michael Jordan in a 1500-frames-per-second clip, and scooping the ball in under a defender's arm for two points.
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Later in the third Pessumal wowed the crowd with back-to-back heads-up plays, the first a neat left-handed layup off the glass. Then in the next trip down the court off a steal, he executed a textbook skip pass to a streaking Elorde, who converted for a 54-32 advantage.
Also in his third year with the program is Gywne Capacio. The shooting forward scored only two points, off a baseline drive past Roider Cabrera in the second half but made his presence felt with hustle plays throughout the whole forty minutes.
Capacio and Pessumal will bear a much bigger load in Season 77. The Eagles lose Frank Golla, Poy Erram, and Juami Tiongson after the confetti drops in this year's final. Ateneo fans would love to see them develop even further in this now.
Ateneo next faces FEU on Wednesday, with any realistic hope of a title retention probably on the line.
For Adamson, the wheels have well and truly decoupled from the wagon. It's a fifth straight setback that leaves them at 3-7 and in need of an improbable late-season surge to crash the Final Four party.
Falcon fans will not like the statistics on this match. 38.1% field goal shooting. A putrid 1 for 12 from the field from three point range. Just 60% from the line. They even got outrebounded, 41-38, with Ingrid Sewa only hauling in six boards.
Coach Leo Austria's decision to leave the hulking Sewa on the bench for all but the last four minutes of the third quarter is mystifying to say the least. In those ten minutes a manageable 33-26 halftime deficit bloated into a 57-32 hole.
Yes, your math is correct. The Soaring Falcons amassed all of six markers in the third stanza.
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With Sewa back in the game (he brought in nine points in the last quarter) and with a Pumaren-esque press being deployed, Adamson clawed back into contention in the payoff period with a 19-0 run led by Rodney Brondial and Joshua Cruz that pulled them to within eight, 59-51.
One by one, the Ateneo starters were roused from their slumber on the bench, back to right the ship, and the Eagles traded baskets from then on in to secure the “W.”
Amazing stat: Adamson's 34 fourth quarter points are two more than what they garnered in the first thirty minutes of play.
With a 3-7 record, Adamson faces an uncertain future, with the hand-wringing and teeth-gnashing surely reaching epic proportions in San Marcelino. Perhaps whatever seating material Austria's buns rest on are getting toastier and toastier with every loss. And it doesn't get easier. The Falcons next face UST on Wednesday.
Follow Bob on Twitter @bhobg333
