MANILA -- Letran College finally got back to life after it hacked out an 88-65 blowout victory against injury-plagued Emilio Aguinaldo in the 86th NCAA men’s basketball tournament at the Arena in San Juan.
Jaypee Belencion topscored for the Knights with 18 points, all coming from triples as he helped the team cap their first-round campaign with three wins against five losses, tying Arellano Chiefs for the sixth spot.
“Finally, he made the shots that he missed in our past few games,” said Letran coach Louie Alas, referring to Belencion.
The Generals lost the services of starting guard Argel Mendoza who was sidelined due to a knee injury while other members like Franz Chong had a sore right leg and Russell Yaya suffered from a sprained left ankle.
EAC slipped to 2-6 with the loss as coach Nomar Isla failed to score the much-needed boost going into the second round of eliminations.
Kevin Alas, who returned last Friday after suffering from a left knee contusion, scored 15 markers for Letran while John Santos registered 13 points for EAC. (Virgil Lopez/Sunnex)