RP Youth survives Japan in OT

MANILA, Philippines - Nokia U-16 Team Pilipinas flirted with disaster and needed a late-game rally to pull off a scary 64-59 overtime win over Japan at the start of the Fiba-Asia U-16 Men’s Championship at the Bandaraya Stadium in Johor Bahru, Malaysia Thursday.

Team Pilipinas banked on Kiefer Ravena’s heroics in overtime play to snatch the victory. The Filipinos will take on the Kazakhs and Bahrainis next in the eliminations.

Ravena, the MVP in the second Nokia Invitational Cup in Cebu City recently, fired seven of his game-high 25 points in the extra period while the rest of the team held the hot-shooting Japanese to a single basket down the stretch.

Ravena also had five rebounds and two assists as the Filipinos bucked the loss of Cederick Labing-isa, who sustained an injury in the early going.

Labing-isa, playing out of UST, is no longer expected to play in the week-long tourney which stakes a berth in the 2010 Fiba U-17 World Championship in Hamburg, Germany.

“We are a quick team because of Labing-isa. He will be a big loss, but his health is our top priority,” coach Eric Altamirano said. “Good thing Kiefer stepped up. He carried us through when we needed a leader.”

“But it was our defense that gave us this win. We took away their shooting and rebounding in the second half and limited them to only three field goals in overtime,” said Altamirano.

The Nationals actually fell behind by nine, 7-16, in the opening minutes of the second period as Tsukasa Tano took over for Japan.

Tano scored only six points but did a superb job orchestrating their plays, finishing with six assists and five rebounds. Ryo Tawatari and Taiki Uehara led the Japanese with 15 points apiece.

“He really dictated the tempo,” Altamirano said referring to Tano, the lightning-quick gunner who was not in the Japanese lineup in their previous encounter. “He caught us by surprise. They came into the game well-prepared.”

The Philippines held Japan without a single basket in the first 5:43 to surge to a 45-40 lead. The Japanese, however, responded with a 10-4 run to tie the count at 50 and force the overtime.