OLFU Phoenix hope to buck odds vs Stags in BBI finals

MANILA, Philippines – It sounds like a colossal mismatch: One of Philippine college’s most decorated basketball programs, the San Sebastian College Recoletos Golden Stags, up against the tiny largely unknown program from Our Lady of Fatima University. 

The two face each other in the sulit.ph BBI Men’s Under-25 Finals at 1 p.m. Saturday at the Moro Lorenzo Sports Center. They outlasted three other UAAP schools albeit their Team Bs in Ateneo, La Salle and UP to book the matchup.

San Sebastian, while having some top recruits on their team, will have their Team A starters back (they missed the last two games owing to D-League duty). They will have back Michael Are, Alvin Capobres, Allyn Bulanadi, JM Calma and RK Ilagan. 

OLFU? Well, to those who follow only the UAAP and the NCAA, then you don’t know them.

OLFU participates on the fringes of the Big Two collegiate leagues — the UAAP and NCAA. They also get overlooked in favor of CESAFI from down south. But OLFU and its league, NAASCU, are fertile ground for top cagers who get pirated by the bigger programs.

Jio Jalalon was first spotted playing for Informatics in NAASCU. PBA rookie Jorey Napoles was playing for the Technological Institute of the Philippines Engineers. National University center Henry Betayene first played for STI before he was brought over to the Bulldogs, who he helped win a UAAP title. Power forward Aris Dionisio, who De La Salle tried to pry from St. Clare College, was a star for Flying V in the PBA D-League and is now making waves in the MPBL. And there’s more.

The Phoenix are coached by former San Beda Red Lion Ralph Rivera, who suited up for the Mendiola-based school from 1993-98. He played for the RP Youth Team and for the Batangas Blades and Pangasinan Presidents in the defunct Metropolitan Basketball Association. According to Rivera, the Phoenix have been dominating PRISAA provincial and regional meets for the last five years.

Rivera took over the Phoenix seniors squad in 2015 where in his rookie year, he led them to a second runner-up finish. In 2017, they ended up first runner-up. Lervin Flores, now with GlobalPort in the PBA, and Gio Lasquety were their stars before they were pilfered away by Jose Rizal University and Arellano University, respectively. Former UE Red Warrior Dan Alberto also came from OLFU before moving eastward to the UAAP.

Other players now plying their trade in the MPBL who are OLFU alums include Joseph Marquez (San Juan Knights), Martin Gozum (Pasig Pirates) and Jess Pedrosa (Caloocan Supremos). 

Another former OLFU high school product includes Teytey Teodoro, who starred with JRU and is now with Barangay Ginebra in the PBA.

“We currently have a very young team since most of our players are fresh from our juniors program,” said Rivera of the team that will take on San Sebastian in the BBI finals. 

“Since they came from our juniors team, they are quite familiar with the system that we employ for both high school and college teams. We practice and prepare hard for every game we play. We will do our best to execute our offensive and defensive game plan against a stronger and more disciplined San Sebastian team. We will just play hard and smart and give it our best and try to win a championship.”