Cagebelles need a sweep to barge into final

KUALA LUMPUR – Perlas Pilipinas coach Patrick Aquino is keeping a positive stance, saying all is not lost on their 68-78 setback to Indonesia Monday night in the SEAG women’s basketball competition at the MABA Stadium.

He said they would try to win all their remaining games and hope for favorable results from the games of their top rivals Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia.

“They’ve yet to play one another. Thailand and Malaysia are also tough. If Indonesia loses to both the Thais and the hosts, then we’ll be back in contention (for the gold),” said Aquino.

“Of course, we have to beat Thailand and Malaysia, and the rest of our games,” he added.

Fourteen hours after their loss to the Indonesians, the Filipinas vented their ire on the hapless Myanmar squad, 123-33.

And they now go through a tough grind of facing Thailand and Malaysia in back-to-back games. They play the Thais at 8:15 tonight then the Malaysians at 11:15 a.m. tomorrow.

Indonesia (2-0) and Malaysia (2-0) were disputing the solo lead in the main setto last night.

Earlier, Thailand crushed Singapore, 70-42, for a second straight win.

The Phl-Myanmar match was a virtual no-contest.

Starters Afril Bernardino, Allana Lim, Analyn Almazan, Marizze Andrea Tongco and Janine Pontejos set the tone of the match right at the getgo, racing to a 33-8 first quarter lead.

Center Claire Castro collected a double-double with 21 points and 12 rebounds, Almazan had her near double-double effort with 14 boards and eight markers while Cindy Resultay and Raisa Dy contributed 16 points apiece as Perlas scored the most lopsided win in the tourney thus far.

So dominant were the Filipinas that they allowed only five Myanmar players to get into the scoring column.

The Burmese produced merely 33 points on a 14-of-73 clip.