Barely 24 hours after surviving Caloocan played in a grueling double overtime encounter, Quezon completed overcoming a twice-to-win disadvantage by outlasting the Supremos anew, 56-54, to march into the Final Four of the PSL President’s Cup at the Filoil-EcoOil Centre just recently.
By winning over the Supremos twice in a row, both via tightly-fought encounters played in a comnbined 10 quarters, the Titans set up a best-of-three semifinals showdown with top seed Biñan.
In the end, youth played a big role in prevailing over their more experienced rivals and the Titans showed enough legs to compete against the Supremos.
“Baka po,” said Quezon coach Eric Gonzales. “Pero parang mga leon mga kalaban namin, pero natuwa naman ako kasi they (Titans) found a way to win.”
Judel Fuentes, one of the few reliable players on the Titans’ side, acknowledged the difficulty competing against the more experienced Supremos, who were composed of former PBA players like Gabby Espinas, Mac Baracael, Paul Sanga and Riel Cervantes among others.
The knockout game proved to be a struggle for both teams as none was able to shoot better than 31% from the field.
But defense played a huge role as the Titans grounded Caloocan’s big guns like Baracael and Sanga and prevented them from producing heavily.
Baracael came away with only two points while the usually explosive Sanga was limited to only seven points.
Still, the desire to win played a big factor for Quezon.
“We took advantage of our youth,” added Fuentes. “Expected namin dahil galing nga sa double overtime, so baka pagod sila, so kinuha namin itong game na ito.”
If getting past Caloocan was a tougher, battling Biñan is going to be a lot more challenging.
