By: Leobert Julian A. de la Peña
The University of San Agustin extended their hopes in reaching the 82nd Charter Day Basketball tournament finals after defeating the twice to beat Western Institute of Technology, 82-75, in game one of the semifinals.
USA controlled the pace the whole game with their free flowing offense that relied mostly in extra passes and fast break points.
WIT’s poor shooting from the outside cost them the game, as USA capitalized producing points off defensive rebounds.
As the second half started, WIT started to press the whole court defensively, trying to disrupt USA’s flow and force turnovers, but USA handled the tight defense well and stay composed.
USA piled up their largest lead to 21 but was cut off to just 7.
With the situation starting to get out of hand, coach JophilCercado of USA called a timeout to prevent momentum, and eventually drew up an efficient play which provided an answer to WIT’s run.
In an interview with coach Cercado, he stated, “We were able to win the game because we made adjustments. We trained hard as the tournament went by and we were able to scout and counter what the opposing team can do.”
When asked about he felt when their large lead was trimmed, he added, “We actually practiced that for 1 week. How to counter zone traps and compose ourselves to negate metldowns.”
