By Jesus A. Garcia, Jr.

WHEN two undefeated basketball titans collide, expect a mother of all battles. It has happened before, and it happened anew.

Last Monday, the University of Luzon (UL) Golden Tigers, who earlier entered the court with some doubts about their capabilities to do battle against their tormentor, the Univesrity of Pangasinan Webczars, successfully plugged the holes in their defense to avenge their humiliating defeat to the Webczars with a close and hard earned 87-82 victory held at the Dagupan People’s Astrodome.

They learned their lessons well from last year’s game when the Webczars snatched the third and final match from them to win the championship.

The Golden Tigers with much to spare jumped out to a   9-0 start, taking a 19-14 lead at the end of the first quarter with sharp shooting guard Rod Natavio leading his team with eight points in the period.
   

The Webczars recovered from the deficit and orchestrated a 9-0 binge that stunned their opponents, to seize the front, 24-20, 5:46 left at the half.

The Golden Tigers neutralized their opponent’s conversions with its big men Jenkins Bucao, Brennier de Leon and Christopher de Vera doing the damage to pace the game 43-33, at half time.

With a precarious 58-54 lead after the third period, the two teams countered baskets with each other with Bryan Santillan perennially loading bombs for the Webczars and Natavio answering with treys, his forte.

Webczars threatened to tie the score at 82-85 in the last 41 seconds, but Santillan, a three-point specialist like Natavio, bungled twice beyond the arc to the dismay of UPang fans, carding their first loss after four assignments.

Natavio registered his season high 21 points. The improving Saimon Velasco and de Vera also racked up their season high 16 and 11 points, respectively. Slotman de Leon contributed 15.

Santillan equaled his season high 27 points. Rookie Lennel Manalo and veteran Albert Carcha contributed 19 and 14 points, respectively.

“We played a good defense   to make up for our struggling offense due to the absence of two of my point guards Marlon Oreta and Martin Callao,” said head coach Jack Vidal.

       In other Monday’s game, last year second runner-up Lyceum University (LNU) Dukes routed PAMMA, 92-53, to remain undefeated after four outings and AIE-C Eagles whipped PIMSAT Mariners, 92-80.

       In last Thursday’s  low-rated  team  matches, the Colegio de Dagupan Voltz scored its third consecutive victory after five battles by trimming the hapless Pangasinan State University, 69-64, while the PIMSAT Mariners crushed LNU-FTD Pangasinan II.

       Clashes resume tomorrow with the much- awaited “battle royale” of two unblemished squads UL vs. LNU to take place at 2:30 p.m. after the UPang -AIE-C encounter at 1:00 p.m.

Last game of the day will be PIMSAT against Colegio de Dagupan at 4:00 p.m.

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