Straight from its humbling at the hands of Ateneo de Manila University last Saturday, De La Salle University bounced back with a 75-66 victory over University of Santo Tomas, Tuesday afternoon, at the SM Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City.
In front of live fans for the first time in two years, La Salle enjoyed a hot start to the game in the first half. Big man Justine Baltazar and seldom-used rookie Emman Galman combined for 31 points in the half with newcomer CJ Austria giving the Green Archers a 42-25 cushion with 39.7 seconds left in the second quarter.
Michael Phillips then extended La Salle’s lead to 58-39 with a put-back slam at the 1:42 mark of the third quarter. UST, though, managed to trim the deficit to just 62-71 thanks to Christian Manaytay’s basket with 2:57 left in the ballgame.
Manaytay then missed his next basket. That allowed Baltazar to power his way and give the Green Archers a 73-62 edge at the 2:00 mark.
Evan Nelle then secured the win for La Salle with a jumper at the 1:00 mark to increase La Salle’s lead to 75-64.
“I think it’s very important for us, this win,” said La Salle coach Derrick Pumaren. “It’s because after coming up with a loss against Ateneo, the thing that I told the boys (is) the important thing is how we bounce back. We gotta bounce back hard. We gotta take care of business today.”
Baltazar led La Salle with 20 points followed by Kurt Lojera’s 15. Galman had 13 points and Michael Phillips had 13 rebounds along with eight points. Nelle was a plus-16 in the contest as well.
Behind the efforts of their big men, La Salle controlled the boards and pounded the paint for inside points. The Green Archers were able to seize 46 rebounds and scored 44 points inside the point. They also had 19 second-chance points.
On the other hand, Joshua Fontanilla and Nic Cabanero led UST with 20 points each. Cabanero also contributed 10 rebounds for the Growling Tigers.
UST only got 33 rebounds, scored 24 inside points, and turned in only nine second-chance points. The Growling Tigers were also limited to just converting 8-out-of-23 from the three-point line; this, compared to 14-out-of-42 in their last game against Adamson University.
“We cannot let our guards down,” added Pumaren. “We have to do a good job defending their perimeter shots. I think overall, for most of the game, we did a pretty good job defending that.”
Both schools continue their campaigns on Thursday still at the SM MOA Arena. La Salle (4-1) takes on University of the Philippines at 10:00 AM; meanwhile, UST (2-3) takes on National University after at 1:00 PM.
The Scores
DLSU 75 – Baltazar 20, Lojera 15, Galman 13, Phillips M 8, Nelle 4, Austria 4, Phillips B 4, Nonoy 3, Winston 2, Nwankwo 2.
UST 66 – Fontanilla 20, Cabanero 20, Manaytay 9, Santos 9, Concepcion 4, Ando 2, Pangilinan 2, Garing 0, Manalang 0, Mantua 0, Herrera 0, Yongco 0, Gomez de Liano 0.
Quarterscores: 23-16, 42-25, 61-44, 75-66.
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