La Salle kicks off second-round rebound with rout of UE

La Salle’s Bernice Paraiso (with ball) cuts through the heart of the UE defense. —UAAP MEDIA

When La Salle first met University of the East (UE) in the UAAP Season 87 women’s basketball tournament, the Lady Archers were on the wrong side of a 65-47 loss.

The Lady Warriors, in fact, used that lopsided victory to end a string of 40 straight losses.

It was a different story during both teams’ reacquaintance party.

Bernice Paraiso was among those who made sure of that.

“We were much more aggressive now because we became streak enders and not in a good way [in the first round],” Paraiso said after a 74-46 act of vengeance against UE on Saturday at Smart Araneta Coliseum.

“So I think the motivation to bounce back was really there and we really wanted to get our momentum in this second round,” Paraiso added after leading the Archers to only their second win in eight games with 13 points, 10 rebounds and four steals.

Before halftime, the Archers already built a 28-point cushion, a prelude to the change of narrative in both squads’ season matchup.

The Archers also drew solid contributions from Patricia Mendoza (15 points), Luisa San Juan and Arabell Bacierto (12 points each) in writing a different outcome for La Salle, who made the most off the 28 turnovers of UE and converted 15 points from it while making sure the Warriors got little back from their 52 misses from the field.

Newfound grit

Bacierto nailed a triple at 8:08 in the fourth quarter before Micay Rodriguez drained a triple of her own to make it 67-37. Bacierto sank both of her charities with 3:42 on the clock for La Salle’s biggest lead and eventually doomed the Warriors to their seventh loss in eight games.

“We just wanted it more [than we did in] our last game,” coach Cholo Villanueva said. “We were flat from that first-round [loss to UE] but this time around we were more aggressive to start the game and we were able to dictate it from start to finish.”

At halftime, three Lady Archers had already contributed double-digit scores to mostly make up their 54.5 shooting in addition to the overwhelming disparity in the assists and rebounds between the two squads.

La Salle would like to keep their newfound grit to change another result. The Archers also started their campaign slowly last season before gaining steam to end the elimination round with a three-game win streak for a 7-7 (win-loss) standing.

But it was not enough to secure a seat in the Final Four.

“One thing that we can do throughout the season is play within coach Cholo’s system,” Paraiso said.