source: Abac Cordero | Philstar.com

SINGAPORE – The Philippines failed to land the medal that would have mattered most when it lost a very close match to Korea yesterday in the battle for the bronze in boys’ basketball of the first Asian Youth Games here.

After five straight wins over Mongolia, Japan, Iran, Jordan and the UAE, the Filipino dribblers faced China in the semis. They put up a very good fight and in fact could have won the match that ended at 34-31 with still 4:20 left in the third period.

Under the FIBA 33 (3-on-3) rules, teams square off for three five-minute periods. But the first team to reach 33 points regardless of the time left in the match is automatically declared winner. In this case, it was China that got there first.

It was a very bitter loss for the RP team made up of Mike Tolomia, Mario Bonleon, Jeron Alvin Teng and Jeoffrey Javillonar because a victory over the very tall Chinese team could have assured them of the silver and a rare shot at the gold.

Coached by Eric Altamirano, the Filipinos looked set to score an upset, forcing several deadlocks and moving ahead at 29-26. But Li Wei Ji tied the score with a triple, Teng missed two free throws, and China scored another basket to end the second period at 31-29.

The Filipinos tied the match for the last time at 31, and Li gave China the edge when he sank his first charity. He missed the second and after a big rebound by a teammate, he drove hard to the basket and scored from underneath, 34-32, to end the match.

Poor free-throw shooting, missing six of them, didn’t help the Filipinos against the Chinese.

Next was the match against Korea -- the battle for the bronze.

Again, the Filipinos came so close to the medal that would have been much sweeter than the silver Stephanie Cimatu won in girls’ javelin the other day because there were only two entries in the event – the other being a Chinese who was far better for the gold.

Elsewhere yesterday, swimmer Dorothy Grace Hong of the Philippines wound up last in a field of eight in the girls’ 100-meter backstroke. Jessie Khing Lacuna is in the boys’ 100m butterfly semis scheduled last night.

Hong, 17, clocked one minute and 4.07 seconds in the event won by Kazakhstan’s Yekaterina Rudenko (1:02.52). Claudia Lau of Hong Kong claimed the silver (1:03.82) and Uzbekistan’s Yulduz Kuchkarova copped the bronze (1:04.07).

Lacuna, 16, qualified in the semis after clocking 58.15 seconds behind Korea’s Gyncheol Chang (56.41), Yousef Alaskari (56.50) and Hong Kong’s Derick Ng (57.05).

In bowling, the Philippines finished seventh in the girls’ team event after Alexis Sy, Lingling De Guzman, Madeline Llamas and Dyan Coronacion combined for 2177 pinfalls. Korea took the gold with 2437 while Singapore (2304) and Japan (2425) settled for the silver and bronze.

With only three days left in this 43-nation event for athletes aged 14 to 17 years, China was way ahead of the rest with 18 gold, 17 silver and four bronze medals, followed by Korea (8-10-10), Japan (5-6-1) and India (5-3-2).

There is very little hope, or none at all, for any of the Filipinos competing in a few other events in swimming, bowling and table tennis, to pull a surprise. A total of 62 players carried the RP flag here, but most of them had gone home.

Thailand is so far the best-placed Southeast Asian country at 4-5-1, followed by Singapore at 4-1-9, Vietnam at 0-2-1, the Philippines at 0-1-0 and Myanmar at 0-0-1.

The match against Korea was highly-physical. Tolomia nudged Chang Jin Choi so hard that they nearly came to blows with 1:52 left in the first period, and the Koreans barely ahead, 14-13. Choi was so furious he had to be held back, and pulled out of the floor.

The Philippines enjoyed a 21-18 lead before it got into trouble, missing close attempts, turning the ball over and allowing the Koreans to zoom ahead at 29-21. Out of necessity, Bonleon hit two triples, the last one cutting the Korean lead to 32-29.

Lee Dong Yeop, who hit three triples early on, was fouled in the ensuing play, and calmly sank his first charity to give the Koreans the victory, and the bronze. The Filipinos, including basketball officials Noli Eala and Bernie Atienza, silently watched as the Koreans whooped it up.

As the players left the court, Choi was still aching to get back at Tolomia and had to be restrained by his teammates.

“They lost focus on the game after spending a lot of energy against China. It’s really very difficult to play back-to-back games after that very difficult game against China and we played our best game of the tournament against them,” said Eala.

“The Koreans were not as athletic, not as tall and not as aggressive as the Chinese. But our players got so tired concentrating on China. China is still China but if we made those free throws. We had all the chances to win,” he added.

“It was unfortunate,” said Altamirano of the twin losses.

Both China, which won the gold with a big win over Iran, and Korea had players as tall a 6’5” while the tallest on the RP side was Javillonar at 6’3”.

Eala went to the Koreans after the match to apologize for what happened on the court.

“We had to apologize. I asked Mike (Tolomia) to apologize, and they accepted it,” said the executive director of the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas.