Three-peat caps Eaglets dream season

MANILA, Philippines - Ateneo beat University of Santo Tomas, 76-59, to capture its third straight UAAP juniors basketball title and fittingly end a dream season highlighted by a 14-0 elims sweep at the Araneta Coliseum yesterday.

Kiefer Ravena (24 points, three assists, three steals), Von Pessumal (15 markers, four assists), Paolo Romero (14 points, 13 rebounds) and Charles Dumrique (14 markers) came out big in their final games in high school to lead the Eaglets to the title-clinching win. (Related story on P21)

“This is our sweetest championship; we tried but failed to get a three-peat in two instances before,” said Ateneo coach Jamike Jarin, referring to successive romps in 1999 and 2000 and in 2003 and 2004 which both ran short of title No. 3. “Third time’s the charm and I give credit to everybody especially the boys, they are the ones who worked hard for this.”

Ravena joined forces with Pessumal, Dumrique and Romero as the Eaglets charged out with guns blazing, posting an early 31-17 lead from which the Tiger Cubs never really recovered.

UST threatened at 51-56 at the start of the fourth but Ravena anchored an 11-1 counter-attack to pull away anew, 67-52, 3:41 left.

“Kiefer Ravena and Von Pessumal controlled the game and Chuckie Dumrique was the X-factor,” said Jarin, whose team will be on a “reloading” process next year with the graduation of the three stalwarts, alongside Jay Sacluti, Romero and Jose Mercado.

The 16-year-old Ravena was named Finals MVP with his averages of 26.7 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists and 2.7 steals.

“I give credit to my teammates, especially my fellow seniors who gave it their best. Everybody stepped up,” said Ravena, who had three titles and one runner-up finish in four years at AdMU. “I really feel blessed because I was in the finals in all those years.”

Ateneo also clamped down on Ferrer in the last two games of the finale after exploding for 35 in UST’s 77-71 Game 1 win. The UST star was limited to 13 markers on 3-of-15 clip, only a slight improvement from his nine-point production in AdMU’s 76-66 romp in Thursday’s Game 2.

Earlier, Ferrer was awarded the Season MVP plum after amassing 87.2857 statistical points. Joining him in the Mythical 5 were Ravena (80.2857 SPs); National’s Roque Estoce (61.4286) who also won top rookie honors; UST’s Ismael Corre (59.3571) and Pessumal (58.5000).