Sweet revenge for Falcons, Eagles

MANILA, Philippines — After three agonizing years, Franz Pumaren and Adamson finally extricated from the stranglehold of long-time tormentor La Salle.

Their rock-solid defense clicking, the highly motivated Falcons broke through with a 57-50 victory to snap a long-standing seven-game spell against the Green Archers and keep their spot in the summit of UAAP Season 81 men’s basketball tournament at 7-2.

It was Pumaren’s first win over his alma mater since taking the reins at AdU in 2016, ending a string of setbacks highlighted by heartaches in the Final Four the last two seasons.

“As I’ve been saying, it just happened that we’re playing La Salle. We treated this game as a game we need to win because of the team standings; we’re hoping to maintain our position,” said Pumaren, whose wards gave the school its first W over DLSU since a 75-74 upset back in October 2015 under Mike Fermin.

In the second game, Angelo Kouame put in a monster game of 33 points and 27 rebounds to power short-handed Ateneo to a vengeful 82-62 rout of Far Eastern, giving the Eagles a share of the helm with Adamson and a two-win margin against closest pursuers La Salle (5-4) and FEU (5-4).

Ivorian Kouame, who posted the league’s first 30-20 performance since 2003,  made all but two of his 17 shots in 33 minutes and did his share in assists (one), steal (one) and block (one) as the Eagles got back at first-round conqueror FEU with key player Thirdy Ravena serving suspension and twins Matt and Mike Nieto out due to dengue.

Pumaren said the Falcons tightened the defensive screws to boost their shot at avenging their 78-79 overtime setback to DLSU a week ago.

“I’ve been stressing to the players we can’t outscore the other team but one thing we can do is hold the opponent down and this game showed we were able to control them,” he said.

The Falcons choked DLSU to 18-of-69 shooting overall, their stifling defense in full display in the first where they forced the Archers to only score two points and miss all their 19 shots.

The scores:

First Game

AdU 57 – Manganti 19, Sarr 12, Ahanmisi 9, Pingoy 6, Camacho 4, Lastimosa 3, Magbuhos 2, Zaldivar 2, Catapusan 0, Mojica 0, Espeleta 0, Bernardo 0.

DLSU 50 – Melecio 18, Serrano 10, Baltazar 6, Santillan 5, Montalbo 4, Dyke 4, Manuel 2, Caracut 1, Bates 0, Corteza 0.

Quarterscores: 9-2, 28-21, 41-35, 57-50

Second Game

AdMU 82 – Kouame 33, Asistio 15, Tio 8, Wong 7, Mamuyac 6, Verano 4, Mendoza 3, Belangel 2, Go 2, Andrade 2, Navarro 0, Black 0, Daves 0.

FEU 62 – Escoto 13, Cani 13, Bienes 8, Parker 7, Comboy 6, Nunag 4, Ebona 3, Stockton 2, Tuffin 2, Orizu 2, Inigo 2, Gonzales 0, Jopia 0, Ramirez 0.

Quarterscores: 16-16, 34-22, 62-42, 82-62