MANILA, Philippines - Ateneo De Manila relied on a brawny fourth quarter finish to earn a hard-fought 71-66 victory over tough customer National University to expand its winning run to five and remain clean in the 2011 FilOil Flying V Hanes Pre-Season Premier Cup at the Flying V Arena in San Juan.
Facing a slim 50-52 deficit with eight minutes left, the Blue Eagles kept their poise and used their veteran instincts to ignite a 10-2 run finished by Eman Monfort’s elbow triple with 6:18 left to build a 60-54 advantage heading the homestretch.
That spurt proved to be the difference as the dribblers from Katipunan withstood NU’s threat in the waning moments to protect their lead and win their fifth assignment in as many games.
The Bulldogs kept themselves in the thick of things and even inched within just two after Gelo Alolino banked a triple in with 16.6 seconds to trim it to 66-68. But Nico Salva calmly sank two freebies with 8.8 seconds left to ice the game.
‘’We did some slight adjustments in the fourth with our defense and we moved the ball quite well. We found our shooters and we got 21 assists. Another thing was we were able to somewhat contain Bobby Ray Parks to 6-of-18 shooting,’’ said Ateneo assistant coach Sandy Arespacochaga.
Ateneo, who missed head coach Norman Black for the second time in the tournament due to his commitment as consultant at Talk ‘N Text, is now at 5-0 to lead Group A while NU lost back-to-back games after a 4-0 start and dropped to second place at 4-2.
Justin Chua provided the goods of the bench for the Blue Eagles with 17 points and four rebounds while rookie sensation Kiefer Ravena also came off the bench to provide support with 13 points and seven assists.
Just as expected, it was a tight game throughout as both teams were knotted at 50-apiece after three quarters.