24 November 2018
By Maxine Louise Lagman
The drums loudly beat in sync with the jampacked arena. It was a sea of blue and maroons chanting their respective school cheers to support their teams.
When the scores tied at 71-all, the pressure and nerves intensified. There’s only a few seconds left.
But it soon ended at the 2.6 second mark when Most Valuable Player Bright Akhuetie shot the last basket needed to seal the deal – University of the Philippines finally won their first Final Four game since 1997.
UP erupted into joyous cheers as they defeated No. 2 Adamson University, 73-71 in the UAAP Season 81 men’s basketball tournament on Saturday at the Mall of Asia Arena.
With the win, the Fighting Maroons will once again fight till the last seconds on Wednesday for a do-or-die contest against the Soaring Falcons at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
Down one point in the second quarter, 28-29, a revitalized UP emerged from the dugout after the break at the half as they quickly outscored Adamson, 26-14, for a 54-43 lead.
It seemed to go smoothsailing from there as they retained a 10-point lead in the fourth period, 60-50.
However, the Soaring Falcons ain’t at the second spot for nothing.
“When we got ahead, for sure everybody was thinking that we could have won it right away,” UP coach Bo Perasol said.
“But Adamson is not No. 2, they’re not 10-4 for nothing. They’re a very resilient team.”
Surely they were a resilient team as they took a 13-2 run capped off by a Sean Manganti basket to retake the lead, 63-62, with only less than five minutes left.
The Falcons stretched their lead to four, 69-65, but Gelo Vito and Juan Gomez De Liaño shot back-to-back baskets that tied it at 69-all. Team captain Paul Desiderio took his time and managed to slip a jumper, 71-69.
Manganti drew a foul from Janjan Jaboneta and swiftly shot two freebies for a 71-all dreadlock.
With only seconds ticking on the clock, the game could have extended for an overtime, but Juan GDL passed the ball to a free Akhuetie, who easily iced the game-winning basket for UP.
Graduating Desiderio paved the way for UP with 19 points, while Juan GDL also finished with the same number of buckets.
Akhuetie was heavily guarded by the Falcons and only shot six points, but grabbed 14 rebounds in the win.
On the other hand, Papi Sarr led Adamson with 23 markers and nine boards, while Manganti had 15 points.
Stalwart Ahanmisi was limited to only nine points after a 2-of-12 percent in shooting.
The Scores:
UP 73 – Desiderio 19, Gomez de Liano Ju 19, Manzo 9, Gomez de Liano Ja 9, Akhuetie 6, Prado 4, Dario 3, Jaboneta 2, Vito 2, Murrell 0, Gozum 0, Lim 0, Tungcab 0
ADAMSON 71 – Sarr 23, Manganti 15, Ahanmisi 9, Camacho 8, Lastimosa 7, Espeleta 5, Magbuhos V 4, Pingoy 0, Mojica 0, Catapusan 0, Bernardo 0
QUARTER SCORES: 17-16, 28-29, 54-43, 73-71
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