Pinays blast Singapore cagebelles

MANILA, Philippines - Host Philippines employed a sleek running game and a suffocating pressure defense to waylay Singapore, 101-34, yesterday at the start of the seventh SEABA Women’s Championship at the Ninoy Aquino Stadium.

Looking to end a 30-plus-year title drought in Southeast Asian basketball, the Perlas ng Pilipinas cagebelles took the fight out of the overmatched Singaporeans right from the start as they posted a 44-12 bulge in the first 20 minutes.

The Filipinas made their first-half breakaway by pulling off 13 steals and scoring 11 points off the break while forcing Singapore to a 4-of-16 (25 percent) shooting and a whopping 21 turnovers, which they converted into 13 points.

“The girls played very well from start to finish so I think they deserve this big win,” said RP coach Haydee Ong, whose wards joined powerhouse Malaysia, which earlier routed Indonesia, 84-60, in the opening game, atop the leaderboard at 1-0.

“The good thing about this game was that it showed the ‘no let up’ attitude of the players. Even if they already had a sizeable lead, they still kept on fighting and fighting until the end of the game. We’ll carry this win to our next game against Malaysia,” added Ong, whose crew takes a break today before it battles Malaysia in a crucial tiff on Tuesday.

Playing as if they were not ahead by a mile, the Filipinas continued to run the Singaporeans to the ground and hiked their lead to 44 at the end of the third en route to the 67-point rout.

Ma. Ana Tolentino punched in 19 points, 13   of them in the second half, and 10 rebounds to lead the scoring parade for the Filipinas, who shot 47 percent from the field against Singapore’s 29 percent and totally dominated the Singaporeans in rebounds, 46-24, steals, 22-5, and assists, 23-10, and had a lot less turnovers, 13 versus 36.

Merenciana Arayi added 14, Bernadette Mercado and Cassandra Tioseco had 10 apiece, Fil-Am Melissa Jacob, who had three triples, made nine for the RP quintet.

Only one player finished in double figures for Singapore, Jayne Tan, who had 16 with 12 of them from the three-point range.

Earlier, Teo Woon Yuen led Malaysia’s trampling of Indonesia with 19 markers, eight boards, four assists and three steals.