AIE-C 5 survives, forges semis stint
By Jesus A. Garcia Jr.
THE AIE-C Eagles crawled its way to the semis by surviving a scary rubber match last Thursday clawing archrival PIMSAT Mariners, 95-88, held at Dagupan People’s Astrodome.
The Eagles, relying a ‘twice to beat advantage’ format of the league dubbed this year as the PRISAA Pangasinan-Dagupan City Inter-Collegiate Invitational Basketball Tournament, suffered a devastating defeat last Monday, 101-86, that boosted the morale of their opponents.
The refueled Eagles learning a big lesson on that September 18 debacle, did not let the lightning strike twice on the same spot, and thanks to the 37-point out put of their play maker Rustan de Guzman, his career high, which made the outcome different.
Despite a jump start to lead by nine points at the first quarter, 28-19, and 54-44 at the half with five treys from de Guzman, the Eagles lead was threatened many times on the third period, with 65-63 score at the most and pulled through an uncomfortable 72-67 pace, end of third.
But the boys of head coach Noah delo Vieres worked hard countering the baskets of their enemies and protected that scary margin up to the end to grab the fourth and last berth for the semis.
Center-forward Danny Abad helped neutralizing the Mariners and contributed 22 points and with 15 boards. The two were the only players that scored double digits.
Ruben Santos had a team high 23 points for the losers. Three of his teammates also came on double figures with Romeo de Guzman had 21, Tony Madriaga with 18 and Allan Cruz with 16.
The Eagles, also the fourth qualifier last year, will mix it up with the University of Luzon (UL) Golden Tigers at 1:00 p.m. tomorrow to commence the semis. They have to beat UL twice to enter the finals.
Defending champions the University of Pangasinan (UPang) Webczars will face the Lyceum Northwestern University Dukes in the main event of the day slated at 2:30 p.m.
Like the Golden Tigers, the Webczars, also known as the Pitaki Boyz, enjoy a ‘twice to beat advantage’ format of the league.
According to Seato Gonomil, head of the league’s management committee, in case of a sweep by Golden Tigers and Webczars, the best-of-three series championship games will start October 5.
If no sweep will be witnessed, the finals begin on October 9.
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