La Salle completed its expected march to the UAAP Season 79 men’s basketball throne last week with the sweetest of achievements—a sweep of archrival Ateneo in the title series.
Led by Jeron Teng and Cameroonian Ben Mbala, the Archers hacked out a 67-65 decision at the start of the best-of-three championship playoffs before capping their mastery of the Eagles with an emphatic 79-72 win Wednesday.
Teng engineered the narrow escape in Game 1 by giving the lead back to La Salle for good with a drive for 66-65 with 15 seconds left then preserved the victory by blocking the potential winning Ateneo attempt on the next play. An inconsequential free throw by Archer Kib Montalbo finalized the score.
Then, the son of former PBA defensive artist Alvin Teng who played his final year with the Archers sizzled like no other in the decisive Game 2 with 28 points before combining with Mbala to repulse a desperate rally by the Eagles in the last quarter.
The 6-foot-7 Mbala, who was earlier honored as Most Valuable Player, finished with 18 points and 10 rebounds and unabashedly shed tears of joy in the end even as Teng exulted as runaway choice as MVP of the Finals.
“It was a very tough tournament. The teams were strong and the coaches were brilliant but I was lucky I have very good players,” said coach Aldin Ayo, who became the first mentor to nail back-to-back championships in his rookie year with different teams in different leagues.
But unlike in his unheralded coaching debut for the Letran Knights in the NCAA last year where he dethroned the San Beda Lions, the pressure was too much this time with the Archers enjoying a strong lineup that proved its worth during the preseason jousts.
Still, the 16-1 overall win-loss record this year by La Salle highlighted by a 12-0 start is simply impressive.
The championship was the first title for La Salle since 2013 when the Archers downed the University of Santo Tomas Growling Tigers by taking the last two games of the title series. Jeron was a sophomore then and played against his elder brother Jeric, who was in his last year with UST, in a rare UAAP title matchup between siblings.
While La Salle remains one crown short of matching Ateneo’s three titles in their head-to-head rivalry for supremacy in the league, the Archers moved ahead of the Eagles in the overall championship race, 9-8. La Salle, which joined the UAAP from the NCAA in 1986 eight years after a similar Ateneo move, is now No. 4 in the UAAP roster of champions behind Far Eastern U with 20 titles and University of Santo Tomas and University of the East, which are tied for second with 18 each.