The Adamson University Lady Falcons registered one of the biggest upsets of the women’s basketball tournament so far, surving four grueling quarters to outlast defending champions De La Salle University Lady Archers, 53-50, giving the defending champions their second straight loss.
La Salle opened the game with a 6-0 lead in the first five minutes, but Adamson would go on a 16-3 run in the next three minutes to overtake the Lady Archers and close out the first period with an 18-12 edge. Adamson would slowly build the steady but narrow lead in the second quarter, but La Salle’s Trisha Piatos would once again come big off the bench, leading a scoring barrage for La Salle. La Salle’s hot shooting in the second quarter would help them overtake Adamson and enter the second half with a 29-28 lead.
However, momentum would side with the Lady Falcons once more in the early second quarter. Despite both teams’ deteriorating offense, it was the Lady Falcons who would find a way to rake in the points, leaving La Salle scoreless by the sixth minute of the quarter, 34-29. La Salle would however soon pull together, and hit nine more points while restricting Adamson’s offense, leading to a tied ballgame heading into the final quarter of the game, 39-39.
The fourth quarter would be ushered in by another back-and-forth duel, but with La Salle’s scorers losing steam, Adamson would eventually slowly but effectivelu pull away and take a 50-46 lead with a minute remaining. Trisha Piatos would sink another basket to bring La Salle to 48 points, but Adamson’s Jolly Balaso quickly responded with a basket of her own to regain the margin. La Salle would give up a couple of fouls, leading to Zhalyn Mateo to hit a free throw basket that gave Adamson a 53-48 edge. Miller Ong would sink another basket with less than ten seconds remaining to keep La Salle’s hopes alive, but Jesusa Avila would sink two big free throws after La Salle resorted to fouling to seal the win for the Lady Falcons.
Jingky Balasta led the Adamson with 18 points, 16 of which were scored in the first half while Avila contributed 15 points, making up 33 of Adamson’s 55 points. Trisha Piatos led the scoring for La Salle with 18 points.
The Lady Falcons now climb to 4-4 in the standings, while the Lady Archers drop to 6-2 to open the second round of the basketball tournament.
