by Von Samonte, Naomi Michiko,Will Leong, Jaclynn Seah and Hafeez Aziz | Published on:
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| Marcus Eugene Douthit of the Philippine Towers over the Malaysian defense. Photo credit: Gavin Lee/SINGSOC |
The Philippines proves to be the team to beat in this year’s
SEA Games basketball competition, as both their men and women squads are now on
top of their respective groups in the preliminary rounds.
In the women’s group, the Philippines defeated Malaysia in a
very close match. Malaysia had a five-point lead over the Philippines during
the first quarter before the Filipinos closed the second quarter in a tie,
30-30. Aggressive scoring from Allana May Lim, Merenciana Arayi and Cindy
Resultay made the difference to give the Philippines another win, 74-63.
On the other hand, the men’s squad scored a convincing
victory against Malaysia, leading as much as 57 points. Led by Almond Vosotros,
Jeth Troy Rosario and Marcus Douthit, the Philippines outclassed Malaysia,
100-48.
When asked to comment about his men’s team, Philippines head
coach Tab Baldwin said “they really have a great attitude about the game of
basketball and about themselves as Philippine basketball players and playing
for this team.”
The Philippines will next play Indonesia (women) and Timor
Leste (men).
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| Philippines Camille Sambile dribbling past the Malaysian defense in the game which they won 74-63. Photo credit: Gavin Lee/SINGSOC |
Zooming into the Singapore men’s basketball team, matches have been going on smoothly as Singapore has won its third match against Cambodia 83-67. This translates into Singapore garnering the top few positions in its respective group in the preliminary rounds. When battling against Cambodia, Ng Hanbin and Larry Liew led the team to victory with both players scoring 15 points each. Singapore will meet Thailand in the next match.
In other women’s matches, Indonesia beat Vietnam 71-26 and Thailand beat Singapore 83-46. In the other men’s match, Thailand defeated Vietnam 108-45.
Source: seagames2015
