Bay Area Dragons impress against Ateneo

Team Photo

Bay Area Dragons continued their preparations for their two major tournaments with a 102-93 victory over Ateneo de Manila this past Saturday afternoon at the Moro Lorenzo Gym inside the Loyola Heights campus.

The Dragons rode on a strong start, relying on Andrew Nicholson and Myles Powell to establish their game, erecting a 17-point lead in the first half. The former finished with twenty points, four rebounds, and a steal, while the latter notched sixteen points, six assists, and three rebounds.

Bay Area kept their foot on the gas, growing the lead to as much as 22, before cruising their way to the victory.

Ateneo tried to make it a game in the fourth quarter, using a 12-2 finishing kick to reduce that large deficit to just seven points with 41 seconds remaining in the game, 100-93, capped off by a BJ Andrade triple.

Ateneo head coach Tab Baldwin shared post-game, "We knew it would be tough, a really good workout for us. Happy that the team competed until the very end. We haven't had many games, the competition in Japan was good but not at this level. We have a lot of holes, both offensively and defensively. We need to be tougher competitively."

The Blue Eagles are fresh from claiming the World University Basketball Series title, beating their counterparts from Japan, Chinese-Taipei, and Indonesia in a round robin.

Dragons counterpart Brian Goorjian shares, "[It was] a really good game for us. We wanted to play a team that was physical, played real hard, and played together. I know Coach Baldwin and I know his reputation. I’ve competed against him for years and I knew that he’d have a team like that and in our development as a brand new team, we needed a game like this."

Glen Yang added a double-double for Bay Area with fifteen points, ten rebounds, and three assists.

Dave Ildefonso led Ateneo with eighteen points and five rebounds, while Ange Kouame contributed fourteen point and twelve rebounds. Forth Padrigao added twelve points, five rebounds, five assists and a steal.

The Scores:

Bay Area 102 – Nicholson 20, Powell 16, Yang 15, Blankley 14, Zheng 8, Ewing 8, Ju 6, Reid 5, Song 5, Lam 5, Zhang 0, Si 0, Zhu 0.

Ateneo 93 – Ildefonso 18, Kouame 14, Padrigao 12, Ballungay 11, Andrade 10, Obasa 8, Garcia 5, Fetalvero 5, Chiu 4, Koon 4, Lazaro 2, Quitevis 0.

Quarterscores: 29-17, 54-39, 84-64, 102-93.