MANILA, Philippines — For Gilas Pilipinas Women, it’s all about ending the FIBA Women’s Olympic Pre-Qualifying Tournament campaign in Guadalajara, Mexico with a bang.
And the cagebelles did it in the strongest possible way: A rare victory against a non-Asian opponent at the global stage.
Claiming the scalp of world No. 22 Senegal yesterday, 79-75, the Filipinas marked one of their biggest results internationally – next only in magnitude to their historic 74-59 stunner over world No. 19 Colombia at the FIBA Women’s World Cup Qualifying Tournament just last March in Lyon, France.
This takedown also gave the No. 30 Pinay dribblers payback for the 62-87 beating they received from the African powers when they previously faced off at the FIBA World Cup Pre-Qualifying Tournament in Rwanda back in August 2024.
Gilas Women extracted a W from Senegal nearly 12 years after Gilas Men claimed the country’s first victory outside Asia in a long while at the expense of the Senegalese, 81-79 in overtime, at the 2014 FIBA World Cup in Seville, Spain.
Vanessa de Jesus, Sophia Dignadice and Kacey dela Rosa shot 16 apiece to lead the Filipinas’ effort to exit the pre-OQT on a positive note after their fumbling start in Group B against host Mexico (58-61) and world No. 7 Canada (38-85).
“What a difference a day makes. Senegal is definitely not Canada but their ranking is better than ours,” said coach BT Toews, who got his first win at the helm.
“Yesterday (against Canada) we were talking about being completely dominated in every category. Despite that, I still thought that our defense was getting better, and I thought we showed that today big time.”
Despite bowing out with a 1-2 record, Toews viewed this campaign as a promising start for his Gilas Women program.
“One game does not give you an identity but we’re definitely headed in the right direction,” he said.
“We need to play with passion, which is something that the Gilas team always does, and fight. But fighting is not enough at this level, your brain has to follow so we’re still waiting for the execution to get better.”