In the current Filoil games, Group B leaders Centro Escolar University has been playing a tremendous stretch of games as they already won six of their first seven games and are leading the group in the standings. After their huge win against a powerhouse La Salle squad on last May 30, CEU head coach Egay Macaraya shared the team’s status as of the moment and how he has led the squad, who is currently playing good amount of basketball.
“It’s a big win for us. It’s the first time we beat La Salle and the boys played very well and they focused on the game plan. We do had a bad start, recovered from it and everybody stepped up.” says Macaraya.
The last time these two teams met was at the Tanuan Leg of the 2014 PCCL Games, wherein they got demolished by the Green Archers in a 79-56 affair. Jeron Teng was superb in the match as he scored all of his 14 points in three quarters. Macaraya was straightforward about the preseason match; that they will focus on the incoming fourth year La Salle forward this time around.
“It’s all about stepping up and whoever gets inside, you have a chance to show. The priority of the game plan was to defend Teng. Celso(Joseph), Samboy(De Leon) defended Teng well. We cannot stop him but we can limit his points and I guess Pagkatipunan also did his job well.”
But the game circled around JK Casiño who knocked down five triples in the payoff period. Macaraya expressed his happiness towards his guard breaking out of his slump against a big team like DLSU.
“JK is one of our key guys. Remember last year it was against San Beda that JK’s shot yung natalo kami going to the finals. So time lang naman eh. Ngayon he made his shots so ngayon maligayang maligaya kami,” he said.
The roster has six players in the PBA D-League that coach Egay believes is a big part in their 2015 Filoil run. He thinks that the D-League and the Filoil games each helps his players vice versa in performing well in the playing court.
“It’s a big factor (playing in D-League), since these six guys in the D-League playing in the Filoil will always want to hold their spot in D-League so they’re pushing their games here in Filoil to the limit,” he mentioned.
In addition to praising Casiño’s huge game, he also expressed their team’s hopes in entering the NCAA and further strengthening the name of CEU in the collegiate ranks.
“JK is one of our key guys and we’ve been trying to keep him so that we will be part of the NCAA. If ma-approve yung application plans namin sa NCAA, hopefully he could play as our main point guard. Hopefully, entering the NCAA would be a positive outcome but until now wala kaming report so our main league is NAASCU,” he added.
Furthermore, he is pleased with how the team is playing as of the moment and shares the oozing confidence the Scorpions have against other schools.
“We are a family. The team has grown great character for so many times in all our games. It’s the heart and family. The bond is very strong now and everybody wants to win kahit sino kalaban namin. It’s very nice to have a team like this,” he closed out.
Moreover, the mentor of the Scorpions invited not only the CEU family to watch the games but also varsity players who are not given the opportunity to shine to join the tryouts for the team, “I would like to extend an invitation to all players to tryout for the Scorpions. Maybe this is the place were they could show their talents.”
CEU will face the Far Eastern University Tamaraws in the quarterfinals of the 2015 Filoil Flying V Hanes Premier Cup on June 9, 2015.
