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MANILA, Philippines — Emilio Aguinaldo College dealt fellow NCAA competitor San Sebastian a sound beating, 77-56, Friday for its first win in the 2014 Filoil Flying V Hanes Premier Cup at the Arena in San Juan.
Even without their head coach, the Generals stuck to what Gerry Esplana imparted after their loss to Centro Escolar University last Wednesday: play defense.
“We prepared for this game. Our game plan was to play good on defense because it was bad in our last game,” said deputy coach Andy De Guzman, who took over from Esplana who is serving out a one-game ban for his clash with referees last Wednesday
“Coach Gerry met with the players after that loss, and we thought that was a wake-up call with the NCAA only two months away. We should start now.”
After ending the half up 47-31, EAC held San Sebastian scoreless for the first four minutes of the third quarter as it stretched the lead to 26 points.
The Stags came storming back to trim the lead down to 11 to, but the Generals just frustrated them with a 7-0 run to start the fourh period and were never threatened from there.
“We didn’t panic. I just told the boys to compose. Good thing was they managed to get their groove back,” De Guzman said of that third-quarter run by San Sebastian.
Jan Jamon and Jerald Serrano each knocked down four triples to finish with 21 and 14 points, respectively, while Noube Happi had 10 points and 14 boards.
“We worked on our defense today. We started the game on defense, the offense followed,” said Happi in the post-game presser.
Jovit Dela Cruz and CJ Perez led the Stags, who didn’t stand a chance after missing all of their 13 attempts from downtown, with a combined total of 21 points and 14 boards.