Archers buck all of Pasaol

Stocky Warrior hits 49 pts; adamson nips up

MANILA, Philippines — La Salle outdueled University of the East, 106-100, in a game spiced up by Warrior Alvin Pasaol’s 49-point explosion last night in the UAAP Season 80 men’s basketball tournament at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.

Pasaol scored the most since Jeff Napa fired 43 points for National University in 2002 but the feat went all for naught as the Green Archers still came away with the victory, their fifth against a setback.

The Warriors, on the other hand, suffered their sixth consecutive defeat and fell into a tie with University of Santo Tomas.

But it wasn’t only Pasaol who enjoyed a career game as La Salle ace Ben Mbala banged in a personal best of 39 markers and hauled down 15 rebounds.

Abu Tratter also turned in a new high of 24 markers for the Taft-based squad.

“He was just on the zone,” said Mbala of Pasaol, who made 20 of his 30 attempts, including five of his 12 tries from beyond the arc.

“He played very well but on the other side, I feel like we didn’t do a good job stopping him. Knowing La Salle is a defensive minded team, we can’t let a player drop 50 on us. We have to do a better job next time against a guy who’s in the zone,” he added.

The Archers were in full control and enjoyed a 25-point margin in the fourth but tapered off, allowing Pasaol and the Warriors to cut the gap.

“For 36 minutes of the game, we played really good but not in the last four minutes; maybe it was a factor that we were up by 25 so we somehow relaxed. Good thing, we still got the win,” said DLSU assistant Miggy Solitaria, whose team got a good workout ahead of its coming showdown with pacesetting rival Ateneo on Sunday.  

Earlier, Sean Manganti delivered killer blows in the dying seconds as Adamson squeaked past University of the Philippines, 73, 71, to extend its win streak to three and improve to 4-2.

Manganti knocked in a putback off a Papi Sarr miss with 1.4 seconds left to give the Falcons a two-point cushion then foiled UP’s inbounds pass to Paul Desiderio to secure the win.

“I guess we were lucky to win that game,” said AdU coach Franz Pumaren, whose charges trailed by as many as 14 in the early goings. “The whole game, we were struggling, we had a bad, flat start and made a lot of mistake.”

Manganti finished with eight and two rebounds to steal the thunder from topscorer Jerrick Ahanmisi (21), who rifled in a season-best 17 markers in the second quarter.

Desiderio and Jun Manzo shot 19 apiece for the Maroons, who absorbed their second straight defeat for a 3-3 overall card.