Sun.Star Baguio

Ateneo guns for men's finals sweep

- 2.

ATENEO fell just one win shy of an eliminatio­n round sweep.

But on Wednesday night, the team has a chance to complete a finals sweep.

The Blue Eagles look to finish off the De La Salle Green Archers in Game 2 of the UAAP men's basketball finals at the Smart Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City on Wednesday night.

Ateneo has a chance to complete a 2-0 sweep of the bestof-three championsh­ip series and dethrone La Salle as champion in the 4 p.m. tip-off.

However, the Blue Eagles have to do it against the same team that deprived them of a 14-0 eliminatio­n sweep that could have given them an outright finals spot at the same arena where it happened.

Ateneo took a hard-fought Game 1 win on Saturday night behind inspired games from the Nieto twins, and the team tries to hold off La Salle again in Game

La Salle, on the other hand, looks to leaning anew on Aljun Melecio's hot scoring even as Ben Mbala looks to bouncing back from his worst scoring game of his UAAP career.

In the first game at 11 a.m., NU and UE will begin their own best-of-three series for the women's basketball crown.

The Lady Bulldogs, who have never been beaten in their last 62 games overall, entered the finals outright after sweeping the eliminatio­n round anew.

Interestin­gly, they completed the 14-0 regular season sweep against the Lady Warriors, who needed to exhaust their twiceto-beat advantage in the stepladder semifinals before eliminatin­g the UST Tigresses for the other finals berth.

However, UE may be four women down on Wednesday as Sai Larosa, Marieny Requiron, Erica Ebeza, and Princess Pedregosa were sent off following their role in a bench-clearing incident late into their rubber match on Saturday with the team comfortabl­y ahead.

UAAP rules have it that players who are ejected in the game will automatica­lly be merited with a onegame suspension. PNA

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