Saturday, March 31, 2007 Dragons whip Express in OT
DESPITE having no marquee player on his youth-laden team, Welcoat coach Leo Austria knows exactly what it will take for them to keep on notching the wins.
“We’ve got to play good defense and execute our plays,” said the grizzled mentor.
The Dragons did precisely those things and got to add to its short but impressive list of victims so far in the Talk N Text-PBA Fiesta Conference at the Araneta Coliseum.
Never flinching despite some sizable deficits in the early goings, Welcoat pulled off a 103-99 overtime win over erstwhile leader Air21 Friday night.
Charles Clark had a monster game with 40 points and 21 rebounds— the first 40-20 game of the season— and combined with Denver Lopez and Jay-R Reyes in the extension that enabled Welcoat to bounce back from sorry back-to-back losses to Alaska and Talk ’N Text.
Reyes added 19 points and 13 rebounds and Lopez also 19 points, but for Austria, the key for only their second win in six games was their carrying out their game plan to the letter.
”After evaluating the tapes of our games against Alaska and Talk ‘N Text, we saw we did not play well in defense and we were not executing our plays,” said Austria, whose first victim in the season-ending conference was pre-tournament favorite Sta. Lucia Realty.
“Ang akala kasi ng ibang mga players ko, mai-impress nila ako kapag umi-score sila. Pero mas gusto kong nag-e-execute kami ng plays dahil may sistema kaming gusto kong masunod.”
“Tonight, we were able to do a good job on both ends of the court.”
Gary David’s 27 points and Shawn Daniels’ 20 points and 17 rebounds paced Air21, but save from some surges the team that opened up the tournament with four straight wins was not its usual fiery self.
This was proven in the extension— the Express’ third in four games— as Clark and Lopez took turns churning out the baskets that gave the Dragons a 100-95 spread.
Daniels brought Air21 within 99-100, still 1:57 to go, but the team missed four attempts and turned the ball over twice the rest of the way to lose their second straight game and drop to a 4-2 slate overall.
Welcoat, which lost to Alaska by 21 points last week and to TNT by 22 last Saturday, missed winning outright in regulation when Daniels pulled off a clean block on Robert Wainwright in the dying seconds.
Air21’s Homer Se was serving out a one-game suspension he incurred for being ejected in the course of the team’s 106-111 loss to Red Bull last Wednesday and Austria said this helped his team control Daniels more.
Apart from the suspension, Se was also fined P50,000 for coming physically into contact with referee Throngy Aldaba while the player was pleading his case.
The Dragons actually came back from a 79-88 deficit in the last 2:40 of regulation by holding Air21 scoreless for more than two minutes and leaning on Clark, Lopez and Reyes to go up 93-90.
The Express’ hopes were rekindled by an Arwind Santos triple that knotted the count at 93, still 25 seconds to go in the fourth period.
Air21 seemed bent on rebounding in a big way from that loss to the Barakos when Daniels joined hands with Aris Dimaunahan and Mark Andaya in a massive 25-7 surge that gave them their first of three 14-point leads at 40-26.
David’s jumper made it a 51-38 game with 9:57 left in the third period before Welcoat staged its most notable surge in the game and perhaps in the entire conference.
With the Dragons finally making the stops and Lopez and Clark spearheading their attack the league’s newest member unloaded a swirling 18-0 attack capped by a Jireh Ibanes lay-up that gave them a 56-51 spread.
In another development, Alaska activated Alvin Castro in lieu of Dale Singson, who was relegated to the reserve list. Castro starts seeing action in the Aces’ game against Purefoods today at the Subic Gym. (PBA Media Bureau)
