By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña
The streak is alive.
After a hard-fought battle with the De La Salle Green Archers at the start of the second round, the Ateneo Blue Eagles showed what a championship pedigree team is all about and clinched the win, 75-68, to keep their winning streak alive and stay undefeated in the UAAP Season’s 84 men’s basketball tournament.
La Salle’s head coach Derrick Pumaren made major adjustments on their part and made it a difficult half for Ateneo after elevating their defensive intensity while matching the Blue Eagles’ length and physicality underneath.
Evan Nelle and Justine Baltazar had huge bounce-back games and were scorching-hot from the field during the first half and helped the Green Archers stay within striking distance, 32-35, at the end of the half.
However, Ateneo and head coach Tab Baldwin did their counter adjustments and got the edge against Pumaren in their bench chess match.
The Blue Eagles’ more fluid motion offense picked the La Salle defense apart in the third quarter which sparked a massive 21-4 scoring run that broke the 36-all deadlock.
After an Ange Kouame put-back layup followed by SJ Belangel’s back-to-back threes, Ateneo suddenly broke loose and gained the much-needed momentum for the rest of the game.
Despite playing physical defense in hopes of disrupting Ateneo’s flow, the Green Archers weren’t able to catch up for most of the last canto.
Nelle’s layup in the dying seconds of the game helped La Salle trim the lead to seven but ran out of time to mount a clutch stretch for an upset.
“We really had to make adjustments, kinda needed to go back to the drawing board. We figured a few things out in the second half and our press helped us, got some easy points and got us the separation,” said coach Baldwin.
With the win, Ateneo maintained its untainted record of eight wins, no losses, while the Green Archers fell to a 5-3 win-loss record.
