Batang Gilas yields to Chinese Taipei, bids world tiff hopes goodbye

MANILA, Philippines – Batang Gilas fell short in its bid to make its second trip to the world stage after it absorbed a heartbreaking 86-90 defeat to Chinese Taipei in Thursday’s quarterfinals of the 23rd FIBA-Asia Under-18 Championship at the Al-Gharafa gym in Doha, Qatar.

The Filipinos couldn't hang onto an 82-80 lead with less than six minutes remaining and missed some crucial shots in the stretch allowing the Taiwanese to snatch the win and clinch a semis spot and an interesting showdown with powerhouse China.

Going into the game, Batang Gilas, whose trip here is being financed by MVP Sports Foundation and Smart, was hoping to make duplicate its feat of qualifying for the first time ever in the FIBA U-17 World Championship in Dubai last week after snaring the silver medal in the FIBA-Asia U-16 in Iran last year.

But after the painful defeat to the Taiwanese, the Jamike Jarin-mentored Nationals kissed their chances of booking one of the three berths to the 2015 FIBA U-18 World Championship in Greece goodbye.

Taipei will clash with China while Batang Gilas was relegated into a duel with Kazakhstan wherein the winner will have a chance to finish at fifth place.

The other semis match pits South Korea against Iran.

The Filipinos though went down fighting as they clung to hopes of pulling of an upset until the end.

And they almost did had Kobe Paras, son of former Rookie MVP winner in the PBA who plays for Cathedral in Los Angeles, and Dave Wilson Yu – with the Phl trailing by three points, 86-89 – with less than a minute to go, made their 3-point attempts as it would have tied the match and probably forced overtime.

Tu Ssu Han sealed the Filipinos' doom by splitting his free throws.

Paul Desiderio knocked in a booming triple that knotted the count at 86-all with a minute and eight seconds remaining but Lin Ming Yi countered with a 3-pointer himself that gave the Taiwanese back an 89-86 lead, 52 seconds to go.

The Filipinos just couldn't score from there.

The loss wasted strong efforts by National U's Mark Anthony Dyke, San Beda's Ranbill Tongco and the high-leaping Paras.

Dyke had game-highs 26 points and 13 rebounds, Tongco had 16 points and eight assists and Paras 15 points, 11 boards, three assists and the same number of steals and blocks.