A PERFECT ending to a perfect season?
That’s what reigning two-time champion EcoOil-La Salle intends to do when it takes on Centro Escolar University today in Game 2 of their best-of- finals showdown for the PBA D-League Aspirants’ Cup crown at the Ynares Sports Arena in Pasig.
The game is set at 7:30 p.m., with the Green Archers keen on wrapping up the race-to-2 title duel and complete a 9-0 campaign in the season-opening meet–and annex a third straight diadem.
But going for the kill is always the hardest part, according to EcoOil-La Salle assistant coach Gian Nazario.
“Winning a three-peat is the end goal,” Nazario said. “But Game 1 doesn’t give us the championship (yet).
“We still have to win one more game. It’s gonna be a feat if we get it but ayaw muna naming isipin iyon,” he added.
The Taft-based quintet clobbered the Abdul Wahab Olusesi-less Scorpions 98-76 in the opener of the Big Dance three days ago and another triumph would seal its place as one of the greatest teams in the developmental league.
A feat to become the second winningest in D-League play next only to NLEX– now in the PBA–with six titles highlighted by a four-peat in the 2010s is here for the Archers’ taking.
To do that means not allowing itself to fall into the traps of complacency, with or without CEU’s man in the middle, Olusesi, after he sat out Game 1 due to a left knee sprain suffered in the Scorpions’ 78-56 Game 3 win of the semis against Marinerong Pilipino-San Beda University.
“We are preparing without him, obviously we are undersized compared to La Salle,” CEU strategist Jeff Perlas, who will now lean on his small but fighting crew led by Franz Diaz, Daniel Marcelo, Dylan Darbin and Jerome Santos, said.
