The Foundation University Peace Warriors bagged second place overall in the championship of the recently-concluded Governor’s Cup last Monday, Sept. 26, at the Lamberto Macias Sports and Cultural Center.
The rookie FU team happily took second place to the bigger and taller players of the Asian College of Science & Technology (ACSAT), which remained undefeated throughout their games with the seven other teams in the league.
The 81 points they scored against ACSAT’s 90 was an improvement to Sunday’s first best-of-three games, where FU lagged by 40 points.
“We played a good game and we didn’t lose,” said coach Louis Robinson. Regardless of the outcome, the FU team felt good about their performance. “We feel we won–everyone now knows that FU can play ball against anyone,” Robinson told the Dumaguete MetroPost.
Monday’s championship saw a close battle in the first quarter, with ACSAT leading FU by only one point. But ACSAT pulled away in the second quarter by successfully stealing the balls from their smaller opponents mainly due to several bad passes on the part of the FU players.
The third quarter saw a 20-point deficit for FU, but the Peace Warriors managed to shrink ACSAT’s lead to only nine points by the final buzzer.
ACSAT Coach Michael Villahermosa attributed their championship trophy to the size of his players. “We have big players this year,” he said.
But the ACSAT victory streak may soon end as five of their key players are graduating in March after playing for the school for the last five years.
Villahermosa said they will have to start recruiting and training a new team next year.
In an earlier game Monday, the Silliman University Stallions lost to the Negros Oriental State University in the game for third place.