FEU squeaks past JRU to close out Filoil campaign at 4-4

FEU squeaks past JRU

by rick olivares

The Far Eastern University Tamaraws closed out their Filoil Flying V Hanes Premier Cup campaign with a 73-70 win over the Jose Rizal University Heavy Bombers at the San Juan Arena yesterday.

The Tamaraws who were without RR Garcia and Terrence Romeo who were unavailable as their respective squads were in the final stages of the D-League drew scoring sock from Mike Tolomia, Anthony Hargrove, and Carl Cruz in putting away the resilient Heavy Bombers who lost gunner Philip Paniamogan to a disqualifying foul and point guard Dave Sanchez to five fouls.

After JRU’s Cris dela Paz split his free throws to make it 69-68 with 1:28 left in the clock, Cruz put back a missed three-pointer by Tolomia then Hargrove scored on a fastbreak for the marginal points.

JRU lead early and held off the repeated rallies of FEU behind the sniping of Paniamogan who scored 13 points in the first 17 minutes (while coming off the bench). But as the JRU gunner and Hargrove were running down the court, the two got entangled and the referees whistled the former for a tripping foul banishing him.

Paniamogan denied deliberately tripping Hargrove. “Wala naman,” he protested. Nagbangaan lang kami.” The Heavy Bombers were leading 35-30 at that point.

FEU slowly came back and they opened the fourth period with four three-point plays for  54-50 lead courtesy of a and-one by Cruz but they could not hit the bonus free throw.

The Heavy Bomber looked out of it after Cruz struck again to make it 69-62 with 2:11 left in the game clock but JRU came roaring back with a layup by Nonoy Benavides and a three-point play by Marco Balagtas. Dela Paz missed his free throw and FEU closed out the match for their fourth win in eight matches.

JRU also bid the summer tourney goodbye with a 1-7 record.

Hargrove led FEU 16 points. Mike Tolomia added 13, Cruz with 11, while Roger Pogoy added 10 markers.

JRU was led by Paniamogan’s 13 points. Balagtas and Benavides added 12 and 11 points respectively.