Eagles to swoop down on Falcons for sweep

MANILA, Philippines - Unstoppable all season long, Ateneo sets its eagle eyes on a rare gem to stud a targeted fourth straight crown: A sweep of the 14-game elims.

“We’ll go for it,” said Ateneo coach Norman Black, whose streaking crew seeks this objective at 3 p.m. against second-running Adamson (9-4), touted their toughest challenger.

Bottom-dwellers University of the Philippines (2-11) and University of the East (2-11), meanwhile, battle for seventh place in the 1 p.m. opener.

Under league rules, a 14-0 record is rewarded with an outright finals stint and a thrice-to-beat-incentive. 

This means that if they finish with a clean slate, the Blue Eagles need to win only two games in the finals to extend their dynasty, whereas their protagonist has to eke out three victories to force Ateneo out of its throne.

“We wanna win this game, that’s the bottomline,” said Black. “It’s worth going for, worth striving for, trying to win the game against Adamson.”

Two rookies in the Ateneo fold, Kiefer Ravena and Von Pessumal, have already tasted a 14-0 romp during their junior days. Last year, the Eaglets swept the elims en route to a championship slot, dropped the first game to the UST Tiger Cubs but procured the next two to complete their three-peat.

In the much competitive seniors action, only two teams went undefeated and experienced contrasting fates under different formats.

A Mark Borboran-led University of the East ran unbeaten in 2007 but got ambushed in the best-of-three finale by La Salle, 0-2, to settle for second.

Fourteen years before that, Dennis Espino and the UST Tigers hurdled all their assignments to clinch the title outright.

Incidentally, the 1993 Tigers’ 14th opponent that time was AdU.

Now the Falcons are pretty much in a similar position to play spoiler to a sweep-seeker.

“That’s our goal but at the same time, we need this win to avoid getting caught up at No. 2 and even overtaken,” said AdU coach Leo Austria.

The Falcons want to avoid complications in the playoffs. Should it beat Ateneo, AdU will secure twice-to-beat edge in the Final Four. But if they lose and either UST (8-5) or FEU(8-5) hurdle their last outing, Falcons will go through a rubbermatch for No. 2 in the stepladder.

AdU is reeling from a 58-74 shocker to the Tigers, a game that saw them squander a 17-point lead.

“It’s a good lesson for us. I think it might be a blessing in disguise because we will be motivated to bounce back and if we win against Ateneo, we’ll put all doubts to rest,” Austria said.

Although Ateneo enjoys a 29-game winning streak against AdU since 1997, Black expects a tight contest like their 55-51 win on opening day.

“You have two of the best defensive teams in the league so we expect a struggle. I don’t see a high-scoring games whenever we play Adamson,” he said.