By REYNALD MAGALLON
The Gilas Pilipinas women’s team was hardly bothered by Cambodia’s slew of naturalized players, coming away with a convincing 114-54 victory to kickstart its gold medal retention bid in the 5-on-5 basketball competitions in the 32nd Southeast Asian Games on Wednesday, May 10.
The Filipina dribblers showed who’s the queen after easily shrugging off an early resistance from the host team with a massive 36-11 uprising in the second frame that all but tore the game apart for the defending champions.Wary of the Cambodian’s size advantage behind their four naturalized players, Gilas leaned on
its speed and utilized a pesky full court pressure which proved to be too hard of a puzzle to solve for the host team.
One of Gilas players earlier complained of too much naturalized players on the part of the part of the host nation after losing the 3×3 gold.
But coach Pat Aquino challenged them, and that worked wonders for the team.
Aquino’s ploy forced Cambodia to commit consecutive turnovers which Gilas, through Janine Pontejos and Ella Fajardo, made sure to take advantage of to fuel the telling run just before the break.
Fajardo dropped 12 of her 17 points in the first half while Jack Animam made a roaring return to national team duty with a near double-double of 16 points and nine rebounds.
Three other Filipinas finished in double-figures with Chack Cabinbin and Afril Bernardino finishing with 12 and 11 points, respectively. Camille Clarin was the other twin-digit scorer with 11.
Cambodia actually kept in step with Gilas in the opening frame before the Filipinas broke the game wide open in the second frame to take a 58-21 advantage at the break.
It was all Gilas from there as the Filipinas even followed up the fiery second quarter run with a 32-14 outburst in the third frame as the lead ballooned to as many as 60 points at the end of the game.
Mariah Cooks, one of Cambodia’s naturalized players, paced her team with 18 points while Simmon Meighansharee added 11 points and seven rebounds.
