Archers rout Falcons to snap skid

MANILA, Philippines -- La Salle stormed to a wire-to-wire 88-71 rout of Adamson to snap a two-game skid Sunday in the UAAP Season 78 men’s basketball tourney at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.

The Green Archers seized a 24-10 lead in the first quarter and never relinquished control, erecting comfortable margins that reached as high as 26 at 56-30 en route to their second victory in four starts.

DLSU coach Juno Sauler was far from satisfied though, ruing their big disadvantage in offensive rebounds, eight against 23, and their 22 turnovers.

“We still have a lot of things to improve on, we gave up too many offensive rebounds to Adamson, we turned the ball over lots of time. (We still have) lots of things to address,” said Sauler.

Jeron Teng fired 18 points and grabbed nine rebounds and issued five assists to lead DLSU. Thomas Torres added 16 markers spiked by three triples and had five feeds in his best game so far this season.

“Thomas played great both ends of the floor. Not only with his scoring, we also had to put him on (Joseph) Nalos, Adamson’s main scorer,” said Sauler of his starting guard, who held Nalos to 10 points on a three-of-12 shooting.

Pape Sarr led the way for the Falcons with 18 points and 16 boards.

The Falcons played the last 6:46 without coach Mike Fermin, who was slapped a “disqualifying foul” for making a slit-throat gesture to the referees in the heat of complaining about officiating. The first-year mentor faces outright suspension in AdU’s next game, per Fiba-based UAAP house rules.

The Falcons cut the deficit to 11 early in the fourth but Teng responded with back-to-back buckets to stretch it again to 15. Sarr sliced it to 13  before AdU’s Dawn Ochea was charged with an unsportmanlike foul, which Torres pounced on to rack up five straight points and restore a 72-54 tear for DLSU.

The Scores:

DLSU 88 – Teng 18, Torres 16, Sargent 11, Caracut 9, Torralba 9, Perkins 7, Muyang 6, Trater 6, Navarro 3, Rivero 2, Gob 1, Pascual 0.

AdU 71 – Sarr 18, Nalos 10, Ng 10, Ochea 9, Polican 8, Tungcab 6, Camacho 5, Fernandez 2, Margallo 2, Miranda 1, Bernardo 0, Capote 0, Villanueva 0.

Quarterscores: 24-10, 47-26, 63-47, 88-71.