RP WINS, FACES CHINA IN REMATCH FOR CONSOLATION ROUND TOP SPOT
By Ronnie Nathanielsz
PhilBoxing.com
Thu, 02 Aug 2007
The San Miguel Corporation sponsored Philippine National Team faces dethroned Asian Men’s champions China for the consolation round top spot in a rematch on Saturday in Tokushima with coach Chot Reyes saying “I would love to go after them again.”
The nationals arranged the showdown with China after sweeping their consolation group matches ending with an easy 89-58 win over Kuwait. Kelly Williams who earlier suffered a hamstring injury and Jimmy Alapag who had a nasty stiff neck and were forced to sit out the game against India returned to action against Kuwait but Caguoia remains sidelined with a hyper-extended shoulder and is likely to miss the China rematch.
The nationals who had whipped Kuwait in two tune-up games in Manila raced to a 23-10 lead at the end of the first quarter and never looked back after storming to a 34 point advantage in the fourth quarter. Gabe Norwood who scored 23 points against India repeated his fine showing with 18 points on 7-of-9 shooting and also pulled down five boards and issued a similar number of assists.
Reyes credited the 22 year old Fil-Am standout from the US NCAA Division 1 for putting the Philippines in this position and said “we are looking forward to meeting China and beating them again. We are saving our best for last.”
RenRen Ritualo added 13 points with three triples while Eric Menk had 10 points. Williams grabbed a game-high 13 rebounds.
Taulava who has been a tower of strength against the much bigger frontline of opposing teams such as Jordan and Iran predicted that the game against China will be fiercely fought “even if the stakes are not too high.” While Taulava who has been playing despite an ankle injury expressed disappointment over the nationals failure to advance into the quarter finals said he was “happy” that the two other teams in the “Group of Death” – Jordan and Iran were doing well in the quarter finals. “It only shows how tough our group was” he added.
Even the Kuwait coach Al Khadra Fahmi claimed “the grouping was not fair and insinuated that the drawing of lots might not have been aboveboard adding “I don’t believe in the draw.” Earlier, Jordan’s Brazilian coach Mario Palma assailed the grouping of Iran, Jordan, China and the Philippines in one group as “ridiculous” and said that any one of the four teams could have gone all the way to win the championship.
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