Shawn Umali denied his old team, powering De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde to a 70-67 comeback win against Lyceum of the Philippines University in the NCAA Season 101 on Tuesday at the Mall of Asia Arena.
The seasoned big man had timely baskets and defensive stops in the dying minutes as the Blazers crawled from 16 points down to bounce back from a previous loss to Perpetual.
With the win, Benilde is now tied with the surging Colegio de San Juan de Letran at 5-3 in Group B while the Pirates, who gave Benilde a huge test despite the absence of Ato Barba, dropped to 1-7 in Group A.
LPU went to work early to make up for the huge hole left by Barba with Jonathan Daileg, Renz Villegas, and Omar Gordon leading the charge as they led by as much as 16 early in the second period, 26-10.
Even after the Blazers went on a scoring spree in the third, the Pirates still managed to get the upper hand before heading to the fourth with a slim 55-49 lead.
But that's when Benilde stepped on the gas to complete the come-from-behind win.
Joshua Cajucom sparked the fourth-quarter storm with a triple before Umali buried a three-pointer from the top of the key as they regained a 58-57 cushion.
A Joshua Moralejo basket briefly put LPU back on top, 59-58, but Benilde answered with a blistering 10-0 run, capped by three straight baskets from reigning MVP Allen Liwag, which were all set up by Tony Ynot as they seized a 68-59 advantage.
LPU, though, made a last-gasp comeback attempt courtesy of five straight points Villegas and a clutch corner triple from seldom-used Nathaniel Fuentes, slicing the gap to one, 68-67, in the final 37 ticks.
But another Liwag layup off an Ynot pass sealed it for Benilde as Fuentes could not replicate his previous shot from beyond the arc.
Despite the victory, Benilde head coach Charles Tiu stressed he wasn't happy with the way they played, especially after their sluggish start that gave the Pirates the confidence.
"To be honest, I'm not too happy with the win. I didn't really like the way we played, maybe we played well for 10 minutes the whole game," Tiu said.
"It's actually disappointing in the first half. I have no idea what we were doing defensively and it's like we were just letting them shoot all they want."
—JMB, GMA Integrated News
