Lyceum bows out of Filoil with win over Baste

Lyceum bows out of Filoil with win over Baste

by rick olivares

Lyceum of the Philippines University bowed out of the Filoil Flying V Hanes Premier Cup with a 67-66 win over San Sebastian College.

The Pirates played close to a perfect game as they ran up a 47-31 lead at the half behind forward Mark Francisco who was on fire all match long and Wilson Baltazar. Francisco led the Pirates with 20 points while Baltazar finished with 13 markers

The Stags methodically chopped down the lead behind CJ Perez and Jon Rebollos.

A Rebollos triple off a broken play with 34 seconds left saw the link shrink to one, 67-66.

The Pirates flubbed their next possession as center Andrei Mendoza had his blocked shot. The Stags gained possession and the ball was handed to Perez with 11.3 seconds left.

Perez, nicknamed “The Beast 2” after former Stags star now turned Alaska Ace Calvin Abueva, drove with three seconds only to drop a pass on teammate Bobby Baculanag who was not expecting the ball. The leather went out of bounds as time ran out giving Lyceum its only win in eight outings.

“Sabi ko sa mga bata, okay lang lumaban pero sana manalo naman. Nakakasawa na matalo,” said LPU head coach Bonnie Tan.

Perez and Rebollos led the 2-6 Stags with 14 points each as head coach Michael ‘Topex” Robinson’s boys also played their swan song for the summer tournament.