FEU sweeps UE in annual Battle of Recto

FEU sweeps UE in annual Battle of Recto

story by rick olivares pic by brossi gonzales

The Far Eastern University Tamaraws beat the University of the East Red Warriors 83-77 yesterday in the first match of the Sunday double header of Season 73 at the Philsports Arena. The win by the Tamaraws gave them an 8-1 record for the best record of the league and got them back on the winning track after their loss last Thursday to Adamson. It wasn’t only the top dog slot the Tamaraws regained. As one FEU fan’s sign said, “FEU: King of the East.”

It was the Tamaraws first season sweep of the Red Warriors since 2004.

After being down by as much as 16 points with the score 26-10 after Tamaraw JR Cawaling hit a triple, the Red Warriors methodically came back at first through Paul Zamar who almost singlehandedly kept UE in the game with his drives and big time shots before turning it over to Paul Lee and Raphy Reyes in the final quarter.

UE’s comeback was nearly complete when Erwin Duran scored on a putback off a huge offensive rebound to tie the score at 72-all with time down to 1:27 in the fourth.

The Warriors had a chance to fashion out a comeback win for the ages against their Recto rival as Lee beat Ping Exciminiano and drove inside. He dropped the pass to Reyes who was all alone but missed a point blank stab that could have given them the win.

It was a sorry miss for Reyes and the Warriors who faltered in overtime as they managed only five points to the 11 of the Tamaraws.

In overtime, Reil Cervantes hit a turnaround jumper over Duran then picked up a loose ball by Lee that he dunked for good measure. The four-point spread gave FEU a 78-74 lead they would not relinquish.

Ryan Garcia led the Tamaraws with 23 points, while Cervantes who is celebrating his birthday today, added 19. National player Al Ramos added a quiet 13 points to the FEU effort.

For UE, which fell to 2-6, was led by both Zamar and Ken Acibar with 18 points. Acibar also pulled down a game high 20 rebounds on top of 3 blocks. Reyes and Lee added 11 and 10 points respectively. Acibar’s board total was the most since former UST King Tiger Jervy Cruz pulled down the same number against UE in a match in 2008.

After the match, a visibly upset FEU coach Glenn Capacio railed against the officiating. “Dapat second quarter pa lang tapos na yung game. Naawa ako sa mga players ko na nagpapakahirap sa court tapos ganyan. Pero test of character ‘to para sa amin.”

Notes: I spoke with Raphy Reyes before the game started and he expressed confidence in getting a win over their archrivals. "Pero kailangan namin magtrabaho as a team," he noted. After the game, everyone wanted to know about his flub from point blank range. Said the son of former pro great Elmer Reyes, "Nailangan ako (kay Reil Cervantes although the Tamaraw forward-center wasn't in a position to block his shot). Nung binitawan ko kulang na sa power. Kapos." Inside the UE dugout, it was quiet. No one wanted to really speak. So Lawrence Chongson took it upon himself to lift his team's spirits. "We have five more games to go," he said. "Who knows what can happen? The important thing is we do not give up. Hindi pa tapos." They also noted that Reyes was 4-4 from medium range at that point. 

The officiating was horrendous. Objectively speaking, I thought that UE got just -- let me stress that -- just a little worse. In the second game, I was surprised that one official did not call a technical foul on UST coach Pido Jarencio who threw his ID onto the court. A team official entered the court to retrieve it and the one official who saw it ignored it. If you ask me, this means that they were intimidated so much that as soon as the final buzzer sounded, they all sprinted towards the officials' room. During the FEU-UE game, one ref exchanged expletives with a Red Warrior supporter. This is the same ref who challenged an ABS CBN production employee to a fight. What the hell is wrong with this ref? Coach Ato... you gotta get rid of this guy. I know that he was the subject of verbal abuse but if the players weren't minding the heckling why were they bothered?