Rod Ebondo and Isaiah Austin impressed the most as Chooks-to-Go Pilipinas displayed commendable composure down the stretch to survive the NLEX-SCTEX Road Warriors, 95-83, in a tune-up Saturday night at the Meralco Gym in Pasig.
The exhibition serves as part of Chooks-to-Go’s and NLEX-SCTEX’s preparations for the 2017 FIBA Asia Champions Cup and 2017 Merlion Cup respectively.
The six-foot-six Ebondo topbilled for Chooks with 26 big points, with 15 coming from the second quarter, where Chooks pulled away wide by as much as 17, 45-28, after his perfect shots from the charity stripe with 3:34 remaining.
But the Road Warriors melted the huge lead and rallied back late in the second half. They closed in by a mere two possessions, 81-86, after Chris Sumalinog’s triple from the left wing with 3:34 left in the final period.
Austin then took matters into his own hands to weather Cignal’s crawl-back. He scored the final six points of Chooks inside the game’s last two minutes, enough to hold off the Road Warriors.
Jason Perkins, who was the catalyst of NLEX-SCTEX’s second half surge, powered the Merlion Cup-bound Road Warriors with 21 markers.
“Obviously ang sakit sa mata,” rued head coach Chot Reyes of the friendly, which will be their only tuneup prior to the tourney. “The players still don’t know the system and they still don’t know each other and that’s very, very difficult.
“Then we have guys that our trying out, we had a nice 15-16 point lead but we had to put the other guys who were trying out. That’s how the game went,” the mentor furthered.
Playing with Ebondo and Austin were Jett Manuel, Raymar Jose, Almond Vosotros, Andre Paras, Jeric and Jeron Teng, Francis Tamsi, Achie Iñigo, JK Casiño, and Gab Banal. Chooks missed the services of Kiefer Ravena and LA Revilla due to their respective commitments.
The Scores:
Chooks to Go (95) – Ebondo 26, Austin 13, Manuel 13, Tamsi 9, Teng Jeric 7, Teng Jeron 5, Vosotros 5, Jose 5, Torres 4, Casiño 3, Iñigo 2, Banal 0, Paras 0.
Quarterscores: 30-20, 53-37, 74-62, 95-83.
