TENG BACK IN THE GAME, BOOSTS ARCHERS OVER MAROONS
By Maxine Louise Lagman
15 October 2016
AFTER three games sitting-out from the UAAP tournament, Jeron Teng has fully recovered from the bone spurs in his left foot and exploded in his first game back against University of the Philippines, 78-72 on Saturday at the Araneta Coliseum.
Teng scored a game-high 21 points, five rebounds and two steals, which helped the Green Archers hold off the Fighting Maroons and improve to 9-0 record in the league standings.
“Win is a win. But from this game, for sure when we review this, we’ll see a lot of rooms for improvement and we have three days to work it out,” said Teng.
Despite La Salle’s early blowout in the first quarter with a 25-9 lead, UP did not easily back down and still executed great defense against the Archers and almost closed in to a five-point gap.
Paul Desiderio lifted his team, exploding 10 of his 16 points in the fourth period. However, Teng shattered UP’s hopes for a third consecutive win with a jump shot that widened the lead once again, 75-65, 46 seconds left on the game.
Despite the best efforts of the Fighting Maroons to shoot another basket, DLSU displayed great defensive play and stopped them from making another score. UP lost despite shooting 50% from the field than La Salle’s 34%.
After back-to-back wins against Adamson University and Ateneo, UP faced another defeat and fell to 3-7 record in the UAAP standings. Desiderio topped UP with 16 points, eight rebounds and four assists while Jett Manuel had 13 points with rookie Javi Gomez De Liano, 11 points and three rebounds.
Ben Mbala had the most number of rebounds in the game, 21, and added 17 points and two steals. Thomas Torres had 13 points.
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