Yankie Haruna shrugged off a difficult experience and provided the spark that carried the College of St. Benilde Blazers to a 90-79 win over the Mapua Cardinals yesterday at The Arena in San Juan.
The 6’2” Fil-American, who needed to travel out of the dorm in his flooded Manila neighborhood in a pedicab just to get a bus ride to the game venue, top-scored for 19 points, including eight in the final period to lead the Blazers to their first win in two games.
Haruna’s big efforts with Edward Dixon in a crucial stretch of the fourth period helped the Blazers improve their standing in the 94th National Collegiate Athletic Association men’s basketball tournament.
With the game tied at 71-all, the Blazers scored on four turnovers, with James Pasturan touching off a searing 17-0 blast with his triple.
Then, Haruna and took Justin Gustang took over with their driving shots as they padded the Blazers’ lead to 17, 88-71, at the two-minute mark.
“It was all about minimizing our turnovers. It did not really matter if our field goal percentage was low (in the first half), as long as we had scoring opportunities. We will score. It’s just that we could not buy ourselves scoring opportunities in the first half,” said Blazers’ coach Ty Tang.
Gutang tallied 17 points for the Blazers, while Dixon finished with 13.
Noah Lugo led with 14 points for the Cardinals, who took their first setback in two outings.
In the junior division, John Barba scored on a three-point play in the last 11.2 seconds and stole the ball off John Amores in the last three seconds to lift the Lyceum Junior Pirates to a close 88-87 win over the Jose Rizal University Light Bombers.
Barba went on to top-score with 30 points in carrying the Junior Pirates to the solo lead with their 2-1 slate.
“In first game against San Sebastian, they took a half court shot and won it. That first game was a heartbreaker. It was the same situation here. We learned from that. We needed to score our free throws at crunch time,” said Junior Pirates’ coach LA Mumar.
The Mapua Red Robins banked on three-pointers by Paolo Hernandez and Roseller Sarias to put away the defending champion La Salle Greenhills, 95-81.
Triples from Hernandez and Sarias midway in the second canto gave the Red Robins enough fuel to take a 49-39 halftime lead en route to a 1-1 win-loss record.
Clint Escamis showed the way with 28 points for the Red Robins, who are tied with the Greenies. Joshua David hit 19 points for the Greenies, while Joel Cagulangan and Inand Fornilos added 14.
In the third and final seniors’ game, John Quinto, JP Calvo and Jerrick Balanza teamed up as Letran overcame San Sebastian, 83-76, to book its first win after a disappointing 75-78 setback to Perpetual Help a week ago.
Quinto, Calvo and Balanza finished with 17, 16 and 15 points, respectively to propel Knights to their first win.
The Stags skidded to 1-2.
