Thirdy Ravena tied his season-high but it was not enough to lift San-En back to the 2021-22 B.League season win column, suffering an 83-88 defeat against Kyoto, Saturday at Kyoto City Gymnasium.
Ravena registered 26 points on 11-of-17 shooting from the field with eight rebounds. This tied his personal best which he set last November 14 — an 89-90 loss to Toyama.
It was a tough loss for the NeoPhoenix who could not get things going late.
Down by just two, 66-64, early in the final frame, the Hannaryz surged with a 15-8 spurt to gain a nine-point lead midway.
Though the troika of Robert Carter, Ravena, and Yoshiyuki Matsuwaki were able to chop the lead down to 86-83 with 48 ticks left, clutch free throws by Justin Harper and misses from deep by Shota Tsuyama and Matsuwaki spelled the doom for San-En.
Kyoto went up to 5-23 in the standings to overtake San-En in the standings. The NeoPhoenix fell to 4-23 to fall to second to the last place in the league.
Harper had a monster game for Kyoto with 36 points and 15 rebounds while Keisuke Aita and Jerome Tillman added 12 and 11 points, respectively.
Carter also had a 20-point game for San-En while grabbing seven rebounds and dishing out nine assists. Matsuwaki chipped in 14 points as well.
The two squads meet again tomorrow.
