The FEU Tamaraws are in the UAAP Finals for the first time since the 2005-06 UAAP Season 68 but they needed an extension to brush aside a tough DLSU Green Archers to pull through.

By: Geoff Latayan

The UAAP welcomes back Green and Gold to the finals as the FEU Tamaraws took the first finals berth by disposing a young DLSU Green Archers squad in overtime, 69-59, Thursday at the Araneta Coliseum.

It took five seasons and a lot of heartbreaks for an old contender to get back to the Finals. For their coach, Glenn Capacio, it ended three seasons of getting the short end of the string as he annexed his first finals appearance since joining the team in Season 70.

And the most important thing of all, it needed an overtime and an endgame heroics of a rookie, who has been heartbroken by the La Salle team while playing with FEU’s junior team last season, to make that thing possible.

Former Juniors MVP Terrence Romeo scored 12 points, including five straight that propelled the Tamaraws to their first trip to the Finals since 2005 season.

Down by two, 57-59 after DLSU’s Sam Marata made a triple, Romeo, who had battles ending up in heartbreaks against DLSZ last season, fired a twinner to tie the game at 59.

The 18 year-old Cebuano, now based in Cavite, though was not contented as he connected on a three that sent the FEU crowd to a frenzy as they had the lead, 62-59 with 2:06 remaining in overtime.

La Salle tried to extinguish the fire but inexperience that resulted to ill-advised shots and costly turnovers buried them in the latter minutes, which the Tamaraws capitalized as they scored seven more, with Reil Cervantes, Paul Sanga and Pipo Noundou combining for those.

It was more of a character win for the Tamaraws as they found their poise just in time to make a final push in the end.

This as in the first half and early fourth quarter, the Tamaraws were seemed to lack their deadly form as they fell behind by as much as nine points.

To compound their woes, JR Cawaling was thrown out of the game after receiving an unsportsmanlike foul and a technical foul as he tackled DLSU’s Simon Atkins, who also received a technical for second motion as he approached Cawaling, 4:27 left in the game.

Moreover Coach Capacio was slapped with a technical foul for excessive complaining in the third quarter. Those things might have caused the Tamaraws to wake up and step up.

It all started with an Aldrech Ramos’ and one play and a Chris Exciminiano’s twinner off Ramos’ dish to cut the lead to four, 47-51, 4:39 remaining in regulation.

With the score standing at 49-52, Romeo jacked up a three to tie the count, with 2:32 still on the regulation clock.

As DLSU’s Yutien Andrada and Jovet Mendoza racked up three points on freebies, Tamaraws’ wingman Paul Sanga sent the game to extension with his own three.

Pipo Noundou’s putback started the overtime fireworks which was answered back by Andrada’s split and Marata’s three. And from then on, La Salle was held scoreless.

Sanga and RR Garcia helped Romeo carry the offensive slack combining for 23 points as bigs Cervantes, Noundou and Ramos combined for 26 points and 34 rebounds.

DLSU, who surprised everyone by making a run to the Final Four with majority of its players are just rookies and sophomores, was led by third year Joshua Webb, tallying 15 points.

FEU’s last trip to the Finals was in Season 68 wherein they swept La Salle 2-0 in the best of three finals.

Five keys

1. Stepping up. If Paul Sanga, Pipo Noundou and Terrence Romeo failed to make their shots, FEU would have elected to go with their checked threesome of RR Garcia, Reil Cervantes and Aldrech Ramos. The triumvirate (Sanga, Noundou and Romeo) stepped up as they combined for almost half of the points that the whole team made this game.

2. Board party. FEU outrebounded the league’s number one rebounding team by a mile. DLSU had their average of 46 for this game but FEU had a whopping 64! Reil Cervantes had a monstrous 19 (8 offensive) and Aldrech Ramos had 10. Unexpectedly, DLSU failed to box out RR Garcia as he joined the board crashing fray with nine and Paul Sanga had seven. Oh wow, it was a board party for FEU this game.

3. 19 point turnaround. Down by nine, 42-51, FEU was heading for disaster, which would result to a rubber match with DLSU on Tuesday (Sept. 21) until they woke up and made a final run. Actually from the time they were behind until overtime they had a 27-8 blast, including a final 12-0 run that gave them the victory and the first finals berth.

4. Teach them to make freethrows. 18 missed freethrows was the big undoing of La Salle for this game. Five missed from Joel Tolentino and three each from Jovet Mendoza, Joshua Webb and Yutien Andrada, if only they made ten of those, La Salle could have won it in regulation. Something has to be done here if they want to be in the Finals next year and beyond.

5. Inexperience exposed. They are gritty but let’s face it, the DLSU Green Archers, with most of their players rookies and sophomores, are still inexperienced, particularly in crucial moments of the game. Missed free throws, ill advised attempts and faulty judgments to go along with surprising plays, solid defense and heavy artillery… this has been La Salle since day one of Season 73. Good news is, they still have time to polish their skills for next season and the following seasons to come. They made it to the Final Four this year with almost no one expecting it. This shows a lot of promise for the Green and White.