Gilas women clamp down on Singapore, near SEA Games gold

HANOI (Updated 11:49 a.m.) — The Gilas Pilipinas women's squad continued to rampage the competition with a 90-61 win over Singapore at the 31st Southeast Asian Games here at Thanh Tri Gymnasium on Saturday.

A masterclass on defense that clamped down the Singapore cagers became key for the Filipina ballers to improve to 4-0 in the meet — firmly on track for back-to-back gold medals.

Gilas women leaned on stingy offense that forced 28 turnovers from the Singapore side which lead to 33 points on the other end.

The Filipinas also had balanced offense, with three players finishing in twin digit scoring.

Leading the way was veteran Janine Pontejos who finished with 14 points, three rebounds, one assist and five steals.

Top scorer Clare Castro added 15 points on 5-of-6 shooting. She also had four rebounds and two blocks.

Khate Castillo and Angel Surada were effective off of the bench with 14 and 11 markers, respectively. Surada also nabbed seven rebounds.

Though the Singaporeans were able to get some offensive rhythm going later on in the game, the deficit proved too much as Gilas was able to protect their lead.

Early in the fourth quarter, the Gilas lead was as big as 31 points.

Gilas play Indonesia in their last game of the SEA Games on Sunday for the gold medal and a sweep of the competition.

But if Indonesia and Malaysia lose their games later today, the Gilas women will clinch the gold as the they already have one loss each in their records (2-1)

In the SEA Games, there are no knockout games and the team with the best overall record wins the gold.