By REYNALD MAGALLON
Gilas Pilipinas sustained its fiery form as Ana Castillo and Janine Pontejos continued to connect from deep to torch Hong Kong, 99-63, in the women’s basketball competitions in the 19th Asian Games at the Shaoxing Olympic Sports Stadium in Hangzhou, China on Friday, Sept. 29.
The two, just like in the first game, caught fire from deep combining for 12 triples while Afril Bernardino also took her share of the spotlight in the huge win that put the Filipinas in the position to contend for an outright quarterfinals berth after improving to a 2-0 record
There was no signs of cooling down for Pontejos who replicated her torrid three-point shooting from the first game with another seven-triple outing to finish with 23 points.
Castillo also remained on target, drilling five treys on her way to 17 points while Bernardino put up an all-around effort of 20 points, eight rebounds, six assists and three steals.
It was actually a total team effort for the Filipinas who after the first quarter hiccup that saw them trail by one, 19-20, went on to assert their might in the ensuing quarters to blow the game wide open.
Jack Animam had a double-double of 11 points and 18 rebounds while Louna Ozar chipped in 11 as well.
Apart from the torrid outside shooting for the Filipinas, defense continued to be the name of the game as after allowing Hong Kong to put up 20 points in the opening frame, Gilas didn’t anymore allow the opposition to score more than 17 points in the next three quarters.
Strong performance on both ends of the floor allowed Gilas to seize control of the game in the middle quarters before the Filipinas thoroughly broke the spirits of the opposition with a 37-point explosion in the final frame.
Hio Lui Tong put up 15 points in a losing effort for Hong Kong.
Gilas wraps up its group assignments against world powerhouse Japan which beat Kazakhstan to a pulp, 92-30 to also go 2-0. The winner of the crucial showdown gets an outright spot to the quarterfinals while the loser takes on the third placed team for the play-in for the remaining quarters seats.
