De La Salle University may have missed out on the Final Four in the UAAP Season 86 Women’s Basketball Tournament, but it managed to play a spoiler role that may cost its archrival Ateneo de Manila University its hopes for a first championship in 16 years.
The Lady Archers ended the Blue Eagles’ dreams of clinching a twice-to-beat advantage in the semifinals with a 67-61 win last Wednesday.
And it was sweet revenge for Green and White.
Not only did La Salle avenge its 87-80 overtime loss last October 4 in the first round, they also gave Ateneo a mountain to climb in the Final Four.
The latter now needs to beat defending champions National University twice to enter the finals.
For coach Cholo Villanueva, who experienced the rivalry’s most heated clashes in the early 2000s, things don’t come as sweet as that.
“We just did not want to lose, not for anything else, not for their (potential) twice-to-beat advantage,” said Villanueva.
“When you’re up against ‘the other school’, you really want to win and you want to compete. That’s our mentality. Even if we’re out of the Final Four, we still played today because we wanted to win against that team.”
From a 2-5 record in the first half, the Lady Archers are just one win away from finishing with a 7-7 record to go 0.500 by the end of the elimination round.
All this speaks volumes of La Salle’s resolve to turn things around and regain some pride after such a bad start to the season.
“Whoever is here will just step up to the role that they’re given,” said Villanueva.
“It’s just doing our roles and accepting it. In this second round, we wanted to win every time we were inside. We made winning impact plays. We lost two games but, again, the improvement from where we were from that first round and now is a tremendous improvement for the girls,” he continued.
“For us, this is a rebuilding year. It’s pretty decent with how we are playing, especially in the second round (where) we split almost all of our opponents who we lost to in the first round.”
It will no doubt sting La Salle that it will not compete in the Final Four next week for the first time since Season 82, especially since it came from a finals run back in Season 85.
Right now, the Lady Archers’ goal is to end their campaign on a high note against the UE Lady Warriors this weekend. But whatever happens in that game, the win over Ateneo overshadows everything else.
“We learn a lot of things from sports. We learn a lot of things from basketball,” said Villanueva. “It’s handling emotions, working under pressure, overcoming adversities, and still working and getting the results that we need.
“So from that, rebuilding is part of being low and part of being high. The good thing about or team is we accepted our mistakes and then we tried to make up for our mistakes and change those mistakes. Now, we’re in a good rhythm on how we’re playing and how our intensity is,” the La Salle lifer continued.
“We want to end our season on a high note. We want to win our last game (against UE). We’re gonna be celebrating now because we won against the ‘other school’ that we di naman hate, medyo hate, then look at UE our next opponent for us to end the second round and our UAAP tournament on a high note.”
