THEY HAVE never waltzed their way to the top only to tumble at the Last Dance.
Playing with gallant resolve amid a raucous crowd of gray and white, the Faculty of Arts and Letters (Artlets) basketball team withstood the spirited fight-backs of a rag-tag Faculty of Engineering quintet to bag the Thomasian Goodwill Games men’s cage title with a 96-89 double-overtime victory last Feb. 2 at the UST gym.
Finals MVP Luie Fabre and Anthony Galongca provided the steady hands for the embattled Artlets down low while mythical-five member Ed Dela Torre supplied the insurance baskets from the stripe, as the blue-and-white squad broke a ten-year-old title drought against a foe which refused to concede despite falling behind, 22-6, early in the opening quarter.
The 6-foot-3 Fabre tallied a game-high 37 point while De la Torre added 13 to help Artlets complete a rare 10-game sweep of the tournament and arrest a decade-old title jinx.
“We’re faster and steadier than our opponents in terms of execution and bench scoring, but composure spelled the difference for us,” Artlets coach Prof. Carlos Manapat told the Varsitarian. “We had more practices than them and our key players like Luie (Fabre), Jurix (Rañeses), Earl (Estacio), Claro (Baadre), and Ed (De la Torre) really stepped up.”
De la Torre, who groped to find his range throughout the contest, made up for his cold three-point shooting, feeding Fabre and Galongca underneath in the entire ten-minute extension while occasionally slashing the middle to keep pace with the rampaging Engineering crew, which threatened to wrap the contest after grabbing the lead, for the first time, 63-61 on an Alvis Parco triple with 14.8 seconds left in regulation.
Notwithstanding their opponents’ renewed confidence and some untimely backcourt miscues, Manapat still stuck with De La Torre at the point, eliciting catcalls from the audience, made up mostly of Engineering students.
“I believe in his (De la Torre) maturity as a team player so I opted to give him another break at the point (guard position) despite being used to playing the no. 2 spot for the team,” Manapat said, pertaining to his decision to sit out Baadre and another backcourt general Carlos Romulo in overtime to enable the sweet-shooting De La Torre to hit his stride.
Manapat’s gambit then paid off as Artlets slowly regained its offensive bearings. The Fabre-Galonga-Rañeses connection anchored on De La Torre’s solid playmaking clustered nine straight points to push Artlets ahead once more, 80-78 with 22.7 ticks remaining in the first overtime even as Engineering’s Ace Sicat scored on an acrobatic lay-up in the ensuing possession to force the second extension of the game.
“We have to control the crowd by silencing them with our shots, I told them (Artlets team) that it will be very costly for us if we will let the crowd get into our game,” Manapat added. “Mental toughness was also a key.”
Artlets then proved to be a completely resurgent pack come second overtime, blunting every Engineering attempt from the shaded lane while forcing the latter to launch ill-advised attempts from the long court, resulting in a back-braking 10-0 run en route to a 90-80 advantage with only a minute left in the game as Manapat’s charges virtually whooped it up from the sidelines.
Meanwhile, Dexter Joson and Larry Ramos led Engineering with 21 and 20 points, respectively while Bremne Mendoza chipped in 14.
The men’s mythical five selection composed of De La Torre and Ramos at guard, Fabre and Jed Sosa (College of Science) at forward, and season MVP Benjamin Gadi (College of Architecture) at center.
