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KUALA
LUMPUR—The RP-Nokia Youth team plainly and simply
manhandled Indonesia late Sunday night, 123-43, for that
punctuation mark the Filipinos were expected to stamp in
the seventh Southeast Asia Basketball Association Junior
Men Championship.
Indonesia,
represented by its national junior club champion Sumatra
Utanu from Medan, hardly put up a decent fight against
the Filipino youngsters, six of whom scored in double
figures, with the rest finishing with six points or more
to the delight of the dozens of Filipino residents here
who trooped to the Maba Gym.
Head
coach Franz Pumaren hardly was that good a copy after
the game, but stressed the convincing win—80 points was
the biggest margin thus far in the five-nation, five-day
tournament—dominantly floated the team’s morale for the
bigger stage and that is the Fiba-Asia championship in
Tehran in September.
“Like I
said, we want to complete the tournament on a winning
note because we would be bringing this confidence to
Iran,” said Pumaren, who, in some instances in the game
against the Indons, left the head-coaching chores to
brother Dindo.
The
RP-Nokia Youth team is 3-0 and only needs to beat
Singapore starting at 6 p.m. Monday to wrap it all up.
Malaysia is 2-1, but could no longer overtake the
Filipinos even if it beats Indonesia, also on Sunday,
because of the quotient.
Thailand
has completed its assignments for 2-2,
Singapore
is 1-2 and Indonesia is 0-3.
Also on
Sunday night,
Thailand
ripped Singapore, 73-54, for the Thais’ second win in
four games. The Singaporeans dropped to their second
loss in three games.
The top
two teams here will advance to the Fiba-Asia Junior Men
Championship. The winner there will play in the worlds.
And the way it stands entering the final day, Malaysia
is guaranteed that second slot to Iran, even if it loses
to Singapore Monday, because of the
winner-over-the-other rule.
Jaypee
Mendoza went seven-of-seven with his field goals,
scoring at least a basket a minute in the 14 minutes
that he was on the floor for 14 points to lead the
Nokia- and TAO Corp.-backed RP five. He also had eight
rebounds and two steals in the lopsided contest that
reared the Filipino boys’ dedication not only for the
game, but more intently for flag and country when
Filipino-American Kyle Nicholas Pascual, the prized find
from California, played with one shoe on in one
offensive exchange.
The
six-foot-six Pascual, who had 13 points and the most
rebounds on the team with 12, lost his right shoe after
a mad scramble under the Philippine basket in the
seven-minute, 36-second mark of the third quarter, and
the Filipinos were unreachable at 73-30.
The
Indonesians controlled the ball after an RP miss and
none of the referees saw Pascual streak toward the other
end of the court with one shoe on. It was only when the
Indons missed and the offense was headed the RP side
when the referees stopped the contest.
“I was
thinking that I should keep on playing,” said Pascual,
who intends to return to the
US
on May 8 to finish high school and return to
Manila as soon as he can to be with the team for the Iran Asians.
Gabriel
Banal made 13 and Filipino-Canadian Norberto Brian
Torres had 12 points and seven rebounds in the match the
Filipinos dominated with impunity in all
departments—59-33 (28-6 offensive) in rebounds, 21-4 in
assists and 22-7 in steals.
Ryan
Roose Garcia jump-started the RP-Nokia Youth’s onslaught
with six straight points in the first minute of the
contest and went on to finish with 11 points—with five
rebounds—along with Ian Paul Sanggalang and Samuel
Joseph Marata.
Jed
Bryan Manguera contributed 10 markers, Joseph Laslee
Terso and Joseph Emmanuel Tolentino each had eight
points, while skipper Frank Golla and Mark Jovet Mendoza
had six apiece.
Promising from the ‘3s’
FRANZ
PUMAREN felt even more confident about their upcoming
Tehran stint after his big men showed they could also
shoot the three.
Norberto
Brian Torres made two from the three-point zone and the
lanky six-foot-six Ian Paul Sanggalang, whom Basketball
Association of the Philippines-Samahang Basketbol ng
Pilipinas executive director Patrick Gregorio said plays
very much like Danny Francisco, had one to give that
potent hope for Pumaren.
“At
least, we saw that our big men could shoot from the
three-point zone, and that’s what we need for
Iran,”
he said, adding he would need two or three more
talents—perhaps one more big and powerful rebounder and
defender and two shooters for the Asians.
Pumaren
reiterated that to make it past the Fiba-Asia
tournament, his big boys should be able to hit from the
outside, a characteristic the Iranians, the Middle
Eastern players and the Chinese and Koreans have.
Pinoy
therapist to the rescue
THE
Indonesians were in the thick of the fight in the first
half behind only two boys—Rocky Chentra, who had 19
points all in the first two quarters; and Felix Gozali,
who had 11 in the match.
But
Chentra, only five-foot-nine but lethal, wily and
slippery with his wide array of shots, was never used in
the second half after he hurt his right arm late in the
first quarter when he accidentally bumped into
six-foot-six Kyle Nocholas Pascual.
The
Indonesian bench first dismissed it was a simple arm
injury until it realized after the game Chentra had a
dislocation in his right shoulder.
The
Indonesians sought the help of RP-Nokia Youth team
therapist Gimbo John Corre, who immediately attended to
Chentra. Corre, explaining it’s been two hours since the
Indon’s right arm dislocated from the shoulder socket,
asked that Chentra be brought to the hospital for
treatment. Chentra stayed about two hours at a local
hospital and returned to the Olympic Hotel with a sling.
Beat
that
THE
RP-Nokia Youth team members and the entire delegation
surprised team manager and TAO Corp. head Julio Sy Jr.
with an impromptu miniparty right after the game against
Indonesia
at the Maba Gym.
Complete
with balloons and pop-up confetti, the RP delegation
sang happy birthday for Sy, who turned 45 Sunday.
“This is
one of my happiest birthdays,” said Sy. “It feels great
celebrating your birthday when you get to serve for your
country.”
Sy
admitted he and his sons Jay and Sage were extremely
disappointed when they watched the Philippine team of
professionals perform miserably in the Fiba-Asia Men’s
Championship last August in
Tokushima,
Japan.
“That
[Tokushima] was disappointing, but here, the feeling is
different,” said Sy.
Besides
the rout, the RP-Nokia Youth team also vowed to limit
the Indonesians to 45 points—45 for Sy’s age. And they
did—by two. |
