La Salle-Lipa celebrates the NBTC championship. Photo by Tristan Tamayo/INQUIRER.net
De La Salle-Lipa pulled through in dramatic fashion as it overcame pesky Rex Dei Academy 62-60 to capture the first Division II title of the National Basketball Training Center Thursday at Mall of Asia Arena.
Its head coach JRex Atienza arrived with only seven minutes left, and the Chevron’s star forward Reyger Dimaunahan was feeling under the weather for the final game.
Dimaunahan had diarrhea the night before the big game due and had been dealing with dehydration after playing two games on Wednesday.
Sick or not, Dimaunahan was the leader of the race and took home the Finals MVP of the tournament.
La Salle-Lipa had a comfortable 54-42 lead coming into the fourth but the boys from Laguna came roaring into the final period with a devastating 16-4 run with John Aquino hitting a 30-footer to cut the deficit to one, 59-58.
Dimaunahan, however, was the one who would take the podium with a counter triple at the 3:03 mark to put Chevron up 62-68.
Atienza said the NBTC title should be their biggest achievement of the season and the title trumps all the other seven championships they’ve won in the time period.
“This is on national TV, it’s a national championship, and by far it’s the biggest accomplishment,” Atienza said whose team annihilated opposing teams by an average of 48 points before coming into the finals. “Honestly, our supporters were a bit nasanay kasi past three games were blow outs, they won’t settle for anything less.”
Dimaunahan had a game-high 14 points while Stephen Javier had 13 points and 12 boards.
Raphael Dimayuga also tallied a double-double for Chevron with 11 points and 10 rebounds.
John Barba led the runners-up with a 14-point, 13-rebound line.