Succumbing their past two games against UP and FEU, the De La Salle University Green Archers bounced back and got back to a winning track with an 88-71 dismantling over the skidding Adamson University Soaring Falcons at the Smart Araneta Coliseum on Sunday afternoon.
Despite a slow start and having only a point in the first 3 ½ minutes of action, La Salle built a 13-0 run in the first quarter powered by two triples by rookie Joshua Torralba. The Archers swarming defense made Adamson’s bigs bleed for touches underneath while their shooters could not find the mark that enabled the Taft-based crew to build an early cushion. First year Renzo Navarro also scored a triple late as his team was up by fourteen at the end of one quarter.
Turnovers started to pile up for the young Adamson team as La Salle kept running in transition. Balanced attack from the DLSU five on the floor maintained its distance against the Falcons with Jeron Teng and the rest of the Archers draining jumpers against AdU’s 2-3 zone defense. Adamson built a mini-rally with Nalos and Fernandez making layups, but too much scoring from La Salle’s depth gave them a 47-26 lead at the break.
At the half, coach Juno Sauler already fielded in 10 players from his roster and all scored at least two points. In addition, first year player Larry Muyang played a solid debut as the starting center as he corralled early boards while the team was up by 15 from three-point shooting.
Papi Sarr led another 4-0 start to the new half by the Falcons but the short spurt was quickly extinguished by three 3-pointers by DLSU. Thomas Torres starting to catch fire while Torralba hit another one within two minutes to erect a 56-30 lead. The Falcons slowly crawled back as JD Tungcab pioneered their run as he inked his team’s first triple of the match. La Salle had a contrasting third period as they slowed down in the last minutes scoring-wise. The Falcons took advantage by outscoring the Taft-based crew 9-2 in the stretch to jumpstart their run.
Two turnovers by DLSU to open up the last period opened the comeback hopes of Adamson with Harold Ng knocking down a three pointer. However, Teng made a big and-one play to stop the Falcons’ run while Adamson head coach Mike Fermin got ejected to the match due to two technical free throws at the 6:46 mark. Torres then added three more points from the foul stripe then top off his season-high with a corner three to reinstall a 72-54 lead. This pretty much sealed the deal as despite Adamson slicing the lead again down to 11, time was not on their side as La Salle also started to field their third-string players.
“We still have a lot of things to work on,” DLSU head coach Juno Sauler said after the game. Sauler cited crashing the boards and ball handling as the things they have to work on. “We gave up a lot of offensive rebounds, we turned the ball over a lot of times. “ Sauler also complimented the game of Thomas Torres. “Thomas played great on both ends. Aside from scoring he defended Joseph Nalos, their main guy.” Torres added that the game today saw what the team had been doing in their practices. “We had a week to prepare for this game. Everyday our practice was filled with intensity and energy. We just brought it to this game,” Torres closed.
The Taft cagers were led by Jeron Teng’s 16 points and 9 boards. Teng was excellent from the field in shooting 8/15 but was a horrid 33% from the foul line. Thomas Torres had his best outing of the season with 16 markers. He also dished out five dimes. Smart Elite ambassador Prince Rivero played just 15 minutes in the game and had two points and grabbed six boards.
On the other hand, foreign student-athlete Pape Sarr led Adamson with a double-double with 18 points and 16 boards. Joseph Nalos, however, had a bad outing in scoring just 10 points and was just 3/12 from the field. Smart Elite ambassador Dawn Ochea added 9 points and 4 boards in the loss.
As a team, La Salle was outrebounded 50-48. Moreover, Adamson had 23 offensive rebounds in the game. However, the San Marcelino cagers shot poorly at 29.76% compared to La Salle’s 46.67 shooting clip.
This is also La Salle’s seventh straight win over Adamson in the UAAP as they improve to a 2-2 slate and will next face the UE Red Warriors on Sept 27, 2pm at the Mall of Asia Arena. On the other hand, AdU is still winless in four games now and will be seeking its first win against NU, 4pm at MoA Arena.
The Scores:
DLSU (88) – Teng 18, Torres 16, Sargent 11, Caracut 9, Torralba 9, Perkins 7, Muyang 6, Tratter 6, Navarro 3, Rivero 2, Gob 1, Pascual 0.
Adu (71) – Sarr 18, Nalos 10, Ng 10, Ochea 9, Polican 8, Tungcab 6, Camacho 5, Margallo 2, Fernandez 2, Miranda 1, Bernardo 0, Capote 0, Villanueva 0.
Quarterscores: 24-10, 47-26, 63-47, 88-71.
