Giant-slaying Altas eye win versus Blazers

MANILA, Philippines - Perpetual Help shoots for a follow-up to its king-size win over previously unbeaten Letran last week while St. Benilde hopes to ride the momentum of a three-game streak as they collide today in the 89th NCAA men’s basketball tournament at The Arena in San Juan City.

With Juneric Baloria and Nosa Omorogbe on the firing end, the Altas gunned down the Knights, 80-66, last Thursday to improve to 6-2 (win-loss) and end the latter’s league-best seven-game rampage.

The Blazers, on the other hand, leaned on reserve Dexter Garcia, who erupted for a career-high 18 points to help power the Taft-based squad to an 84-64 rout of the listless Mapua Cardinals last week. It was St. Benilde’s third straight win after losing its first five games in close fashions.

Both coaches expect nothing but a slambang action at 6 p.m.

“Expect a tough game because they’re on a roll and look like they already found their groove, it’s hard to beat teams like that,” said Perpetual mentor Aric del Rosario, whose charges are trailing co-leaders San Beda and Letran (7-1) by just a game, in Filipino.

In the other game, San Sebastian (4-4) and Lyceum (2-6) slug it out at 4 p.m.

“I respect coach Aric (del Rosario) a lot and he has made Perpetual a title contender,” said St. Benilde coach Gabby Velasco. “What we can do against them is to do the things that we prepared and play the way we played in those three wins.”

What the Blazers did in their three-game run was play tough defense and run their play patterns with clockwork precision.

Mark Romero and Paolo Taha have anchored the Blazers’ resurgence with norms of 15.75 and 14.88 points, respectively, including their combined 40-point effort in the Arellano U blowout.

Perpetual Help, meanwhile, is the league’s second-best offensive team with a 73.3-point average. It also boasts of a league-high 8.25 three-point conversions.

“Our offense is our strength,” said Rosario.