Coach Boyet Turns To Old NLEX Play For Game-Winner

With 4.7 seconds remaining on the clock, the San Beda Red Lions were not in great shape.

Heavily favored to win a fourth consecutive NCAA title this year, they were facing an upset in their very first game of the season after St. Benilde’s Fons Saavedra drained a three-pointer that put the Blazers ahead by a point, 70-69.

San Beda had squandered a double-digit lead in the fourth and were staring at their first deficit of the game, but newly-installed coach Boyet Fernandez saw little reason to panic.

After all, he was keeping a play handy for situations exactly like this.

“Our final play was the play I used during my first D-League championship with NLEX. We always practice it with San Beda,” Fernandez told InterAKTV in a text message.

“So far, it never failed me.”

Fernandez had run the same set for the NLEX Road Warriors in the 2011 PBA D-League Foundation Cup finals, resulting in a corner jumper for Ronald Pascual that sealed the title against Cebuana Lhuillier.

This time, it was forward Art Dela Cruz that got open, running from the baseline to the top of the key and curling back on an overplaying Saavedra to get an uncontested alley-oop look at the rim for the game-winner.

But the coach admitted that, though he was happy with the win, this is not the kind of performance with which his Red Lions should be content.

“I’m happy and relieved after we won but we still have a lot of work to do. We will continue to improve every game.”

source: InterAktv