Defiant Eagles vow to rebound, force ‘rubber’

MANILA, Philippines – After getting tantalizingly close to stealing Game One against favored La Salle, there’s no way back-against-the-wall Ateneo is giving up the fight for the UAAP LXXIX men’s basketball crown.

Defiant Eagles star Thirdy Ravena said they remain positive they can get the job done in Wednesday’s make-or-break Game Two.

“We’ve been doing it the entire season. Not everyone really expected us to reach this far pero ‘yun lang ang ginawa namin, lumaban lang kami and binigay namin ang sarili namin para sa mga teammates namin (but we kept on fighting and making sacrifices for our teammates),” said Ravena.

“Siguro na-pressure lang talaga sa laro (Maybe the pressure affected us). But the job’s not over…we’ll bounce back next game. Hopefully, without a bad start (next time),” he added.

Ateneo fell to a 2-17 hole at the start of Game One and had to dig deep to catch up on La Salle and eventually take a 65-64 cushion with 34.6 seconds left.

Jeron Teng’s heroics, however, saved the day for DLSU.

“Who knows (if we started well)?,” said AdMU coach Tab Baldwin. “You do your job and we were prepared, we went out, but for whatever the reason – and I prefer to credit La Salle – they really came out and they were business-like and we weren’t. It took us a long time to settle down.”

Ravena owned up to a crucial turnover that resulted in the Teng’s go-ahead layup on the other end.

But Baldwin felt Ravena was fouled by Kib Montalbo, causing him to lose the ball.

The young Eagles draw confidence from giving the Archers a tough fight to the finish as they seek to nail the equalizer and force a sudden death.

“We fought, just like what we do every single game, we fight. Even though things did not seem okay sa start naman, we just tried to play with our hearts and not let the gravity of the game intimidate us. Just play our own game. We just played team basketball,” said Ravena.