College of St. Benilde was ahead, but Arellano University came back late, which made Blazers’ head coach Charles Tiu sad.
Tiu was upset that St. Benilde didn’t finish the game well after giving up a 20-point lead and coming close to losing.
“I didn’t like the way the game ended. Tiu said after his team’s 86-78 win in the OKBet Filoil EcoOil Preseason Cup on Wednesday at San Juan Arena, “It’s always a test to see how guys keep their cool and figure things out on their own.”
“We were lucky to win, but it wasn’t a good game.”
When the 4th quarter started, the Blazers had a 75-55 lead over the Chiefs. But the Chiefs came back and cut the lead to four points with 21 seconds left.
In the previous few seconds of the match, Sidney Mosqueda made two free throws to help CSB finally beat Arellano.
The Blazers, now 5-3, made 12 three-pointers while the Chiefs only made four.
Miguel Corteza scored 14 points to lead Benilde, while Migs Oczon and Fred Pasturan each scored 11.
Cade Flores had the most points in the game with 26. The Chiefs still haven’t won in five games.
St. Benilde draws solid bench play in the latest win
On Tuesday, Emilio Aguinaldo College was blown out by College of St. Benilde, 100-70, in Group A of the Filoil EcoOil Preseason Cup at San Juan Arena. College of St. Benilde’s reserves played well and helped them win.
But Blazers head coach Charles Tiu said that his team still has some things to work on, even though they won by a wide margin thanks to 67 bench points.
“Both our second and third units were fine. We’re trying to put these teams together differently to see how they work. “The third unit needs a lot of work. They’re still a little bit of a work in progress,” Tiu said. His bench scored 42 more points than the Generals’ bench.
The strong play from the bench let starters like Will Gozum and Robin Nayve get some much-needed rest.
“I don’t know my starting lineup for next season yet. I want to give guys chances. It will depend on how they practice so that everyone will have a chance. “If I’m not happy with Will Gozum’s play, he’ll play 15 minutes,” said Tiu, whose team has won three straight games and is now 4-2 on the season.
“I told them to play smarter, and they did. It only shot 30 percent of the time, which I thought was pretty good, so our defense worked, and we were competent to make the right changes,” Tiu said.
In the last 2 min of the match, Miguel Corteza hit a three-pointer that made the score 72–59 and put the game out of reach.
The Blazers’ 12-0 run in the second quarter gave them a 31-16 lead, making the game a blowout.
Returning Migs With 15 points and four 3-pointers, Oczon led the Blazers’ second group. Gozum still had 17 points and was CSB’s leader.
Ralph Robin and Allen Liwag led the Generals, who fell to 2-3, with 13 and 12 points, respectively.
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