UNIVERSITY of the Philippines surged late to overpower the league-leading University of Santo Tomas, 16-6, securing its third win in the UAAP 86 Baseball tournament on Sunday at the former’s home field in Diliman, Quezon City.
The Fighting Maroons avenged their 8-15 opening day loss against the Golden Sox to move into solo fifth place with a 3-4 win-loss record, just one win behind the logjammed UST, De La Salle University Green Batters, Ateneo de Manila University Blue Eagles, and National University Bulldogs, all of which are at 4-3.
“Nakita mo naman ‘yun nangyari dun sa adjustment. Even with all the injuries, nag-step up sila ngayon dahil sinabi ko must-win na sa ‘min itong last four games for us to make it to the Final Four,” said UP head coach Anthony Dizer.
Adjustments came indeed after a scarce offensive outing against De La Salle on Thursday, as UP came up with 14 hits and scored in six of the nine innings they batted, including that six-run swing from the third to the fifth frames that set the tone for the win.
The Fighting Maroons snagged the lead in the fourth at 4-3 after cutting that cushion to one, thanks to a two runs-batted-in single from Tristan Yu.
The Golden Sox then retaliated to get back at 5-4 with a base hit of their own that scored two care of Harry Geronimo.
The home side, playing as visitors for the game, though, took control of the proceedings with a huge fifth-inning rush with rookie catcher Eman Javier starting it off with no less than a triple to the right center.
Two straight errors from UST scored Javier and put Razhley Santos and Aaron Nicha on the bases for UP. Kobe Torres and LM Basañes obliged with sacrifice hits to take back the advantage, 8-3, which turned out to be for good.
Javier concluded with another impressive outing, recording three hits on five at-bats and making a significant defensive play in the seventh inning by catching Raniel Carido attempting to steal second base.
However, it was the astute pitching from fellow rookie Ram Matanguihan that limited the otherwise potent Golden Sox to just four hits in the seven innings he pitched.
Steven Dominguez ended with two of these five hits while reigning MVP Justine Rosales got out in the other two instances of his five at-bats that he was not given a free pass to first base.