As Gilas girls sustain fiery form, coach Pat guards wards from being ‘too relaxed’

Gilas Girls in the Fiba U16 Women’s Asian Championship Division B. –FIBA BASKETBALL

The Gilas girls have all sorts of momentum going their way when they seek Division A promotion in the Fiba (International Basketball Federation) U16 Women’s Asian Championship after sweeping their three elimination round games capped by a 106-58 destruction of Jordan on Wednesday.

But coach Pat Aquino is preaching to his girls a very valuable lesson, a bitter one suffered not more than a year before.

“The morale of the team is very high, because they are excited making the semis,” Aquino told the Inquirer over the phone on Thursday. “But I also told them of our team’s story last year, when we were gearing up for the championship and got booted out in the semis.”

The Philippines has been out of Division A for more than a decade now, as Aquino recalls. And the coach who has steered the women’s team to heights it has never conquered before wants this batch of girls to stay on their toes.

“It’s never nice to be too relaxed,” Aquino said. “We just need to be ready for what can happen.”

The Gilas girls also had a 3-0 start last year but fell in the semifinals to Samoa on the way to finishing third and staying in Division B.

“That was a bitter lesson for us,” Aquino recalled. “And we (coaching staff) are going to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.”

With their third consecutive win chalked up, the Filipinos are to face either Malaysia or Iran on Saturday (Philippine time), with Singapore having an outside chance of crashing the Pool B party.

The pint-sized Kimi Sayson, a find from New Jersey, was brilliant in leading the young Filipinos with 19 points, seven steals, six assists and four rebounds as the Philippines swept all of its three matches in Pool A of Division B action.

Ava Fajardo, younger sister of women’s team standout Ella, also shone with 17 points and five assists, while Nevaeh Smith chipped in 15 points. Ryan Kelly Nair dropped 11 points, seven assists and four steals.

Scarlett Mercado and Demicah Arnaldo added 10 points each in another lopsided victory for the Gilas girls, who had an average winning margin of 69.7 points counting results of routs of Maldives and Hong Kong.

The Gilas girls had 28 steals and scored 45 points off Jordan’s turnovers. The Filipinos only committed nine turnovers and tallied 27 assists in the match.