MANILA, Philippines – With speed as its primary weapon, the Energen Philippine Youth squad hopes it will be enough to topple down powerhouse squad likes China and Iran in the upcoming Fiba Asia U-16 championships.
Buoyed by their dominating sweep of the SEABA, but hampered by availability woes of the players, the U-16 squad will still go full throttle in the preliminary round starting next week.
“We formed the best team possible, and we feel that this team will be competitive enough,” PH U-16 assistant coach Nash Racela said Tuesday at the PSA Forum in Manila Tuesday.
The Philippines will warm up versus Indonesia and host Vietnam in the first round of the competition which serves as the qualifiers for the Fiba Worlds Under-17.
Vital cogs like Arvin Tolentino and Gelo Vito, who led the Philippines to the title in the regional qualifiers last August, are unable to join the team due to commitments with their squads in the NCAA final four.
But Jay Javelosa, a forward from Reedly who will be the forefront of Energen’s assault, is confident that his squad, despite the overhauled in the roster, will still thrive.
“We’ll do our best. We just have to have faith in the team,” said Javelosa. “Even though they’re bigger, we have the bigger heart. We’ll never give up.”
Herny Asilum, Rev Diputado, Hubert Cani, Kyles Lao, Earl Murphy and Daryl Pascual are among those who will bring their experience from SEABA to help the squad equal or eclipse the fourth place finish of the previous squad in 2009.
“It was a good thing that these players got to play out of the country. We have a great chance because these boys are the best in their age group,” said team manager Joel Lopa also in the weekly forum.
Lopa also said that although the squad lost its primary big men, this line-up was still relatively bigger than the previous squads sent to the biennial event.
Recognizing its weakness – thePhilippines is hoping to offset the obvious height disparity by running and tiring out its taller opponents, which has been the focal point of the system of head coach Olsen Racela.
“This is a running and attacking team,” said Nash Racela, who spoke for his brother. “We got great players whose strength is to penetrate the basket. We also got number of shooters.”
“We know Chinese, Indian players are big, but we don’t want to focus on that. We want to emphasize on our strength which is quickness. I hope we execute.”