INQUIRER Sports

MANILA, Philippines—A day after a rousing victory over defending champion De La Salle University, University of the East lost a battle in the UAAP board room.

Saying that all teams have “to live by the errors committed by officials,” league officials turned down the Warriors’ protest over a technical violation committed during a recent loss to the Far Eastern University Tamaraws.

“While the board sees some valid points raised by UE, the board also saw the human error [in the game],” league secretary treasurer Herc Callanta said Sunday.

“There’s always that possibility of officials committing human error. That’s normal. Officials are not infallible.”

The Warriors claimed that FEU should not have scored a basket through Marlon Adolfo late in the game due to a 24-second shot clock violation in the match they narrowly lost to the Tamaraws, 71-69, on July 26.

“There was a voting; I’m not at liberty to reveal how the voting went, but it was a majority,” said Callanta after a two-hour meeting presided by UAAP president Sergio Cao.

Philippine Daily Inquirer sources said La Salle and Ateneo de Manila University voted to uphold UE’s protest, while Adamson University, University of Santo Tomas and National University voted against it.

“We’re disappointed, but we have to abide by the board’s decision,” said UE coach Dindo Pumaren. “But we still believe that a technical error happened during the game and it should’ve been corrected. They said it did not affect the outcome of the game, but in a close game like that, every basket counted.”