San Beda survives Mapúa
Friday, 5 August 2011 3,323 Views / 326 Comments
DAVE Marcelo turned trash into treasure, salvaging a broken play after Garvo Lanete slipped to the floor by coming up with the loose ball and nailing an up-and-under layup to give San Beda College a four-point lead with 27.2 seconds in his squad’s tiff with the Mapúa Institute of Technology. The basket was also enough to hand the defending champions a 74-68 win, its seventh straight in the NCAA’s 87th season, after 40 minutes of tough play against a feisty Cardinals quintet.
Prior to that conversion, it was all touch and go for the reigning champions as Mapúa overcame a 61-47 San Beda lead early in the fourth quarter. Baskets by Allan Mangahas, Mike Parala and Mark Sarangay cut the lead down to six, 61-55, with 6:06 left to play in the fourth as the Cardinals took advantage of sloppy San Beda offensives. After the Red Lions rebuilt the lead to 10 on back-to-back trips to the free throw line by Lanete, Mangahas and Sarangay teamed up again to cut the lead to four, 70-66 with Sarangay connecting on a hook shot over Marcelo, with 1:49 left to play. San Beda then committed a 24-second infraction, awarding the ball back to the Cardinals, who got nothing on their first try. But luckily, a Red Lion had tipped the ball out trying to get the rebound, allowing Mapúa to reset with 1:04 left. Yousef Taha missed on his drive, but Kenneth Ighalo was there for his fifth offensive rebound of the game, throwing it back to “The Snake” Mangahas, who nailed a floater with 47.2 seconds left that made it a two-point, 70-68 game. Off a San Beda timeout, the play coach Frankie Lim drew up was being executed perfectly, until Lanete slipped after using a screen to shake off his defender. Luckily, Marcelo, the screener, pounced on the ball, faked, and tossed it up, to pad the lead to 72-68. Mapúa called its last timeout, but Mangahas whiffed on a triple, and Anjo Caram nailed a layup off a Lanete pass to close the game.
Lanete top-scored for San Beda with 18 points despite shooting just 5-of-13 from the field, to go along with his six rebounds and three assists. Marcelo had the best game out of all the San Beda big men, a double-double of 13 points and 12 rebounds, while Caram added another 13 markers, plus three dimes.
The Red Lions found themselves down early, 12-7, before a 9-0 run that included a Baser Amer triple and an and-one play by Melo Lim gave them a 16-12 lead. Mapúa was able to knot things in the second quarter though 25-all, off a triple by Mangahas with 5:54 remaining in the first half. Mangahas and Jason Pascual then teamed up to give the Cardinals a 40-32 lead with a minute left in the first half, but a triple by Caram, a transition basket by Lanete, and a split at the line by Anthony Semerad allowed San Beda to slice that lead to just two points, 40-38 at the half.
The two teams went back and forth coming out of the break, but the Red Lions put on an impressive display of scoring, closing out the third period with a 16-1 blast that was padded by a technical foul on a Mapúa assistant for excessive complaining. The run was carried over to the fourth after Rome de la Rosa hit a triple and Marcelo scored on a putback, creating the 61-47 bulge that the Cardinals ate into. “I just thought we had a [strong] third quarter,” said Lim, who pointed to it as the game’s turning point. “We limited them to just seven points. That was huge for us.”
Mangahas led all scorers with 25 points, while also pulling down nine rebounds. Mike Parala excelled in his short stint with 12 points and six rebounds in 11 minutes, before fouling out, while fellow big man Sarangay added 10 and six. Taha scored just four points, but had 14 rebounds and two blocked shots.
Early on, the Cardinals gave the Red Lions fits on the glass by going with three big men, a tactic that helped give Mapúa a huge 54 to 32 advantage on the boards. Lim countered by going to a zone defense. But with not enough shooters on the floor, the Cardinals threw up a lot of misses. Eventually, Mapúa head coach Chito Victolero relented and returned to a more conventional lineup, a decision compounded by Parala’s foul trouble. “As far as I remember, this was the only game where we were beaten badly in rebounds and still won the game,” said Lim about the department the Red Lions are used to dominating. “I’m very disappointed with the way the guys backed down and rebounded. I got to give credit to Mapúa, they scouted us well. ”
San Beda still has two foes to conquer before sweeping the first round, the JRU Heavy Bombers on Wednesday, August 10, and the much-anticipated finals rematch with the San Sebastian Stags on August 19. The now 2-5 Mapúa Cardinals still have the Stags as well on August 10, before finishing their first round assignments with host school Perpetual Help Altas on August 15.
The scores:
San Beda 74 – Lanete 18, Marcelo 13, Caram 13, de la Rosa 11, A. Semerad 8, D. Semerad 4, Amer 3, Lim 3, K. Pascual 1, J. Pascual 0, Villahermosa 0
Mapúa 68 – Mangahas 25, Parala 12, Sarangay 10, Pascual 5, Taha 4, Nimes 4, Banal 3, Ranises 3, Stevens 2, Ighalo 0
Quarter scoring: 20-17, 38-40, 56-47, 74-68
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