University of Santo Tomas weathered a couple of late quarter rallies by University of the Philippines eking out an 87-83 win in the Final Four rubber match to advance into the University Athletic Association of the Philippines women’s basketball tournament championship yesterday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
Veterans Kent Pastrana and Bridgette Santos delivered the crucial points in the closing minute of the payoff period to extinguish the Fighting Maroons’ desperate fightback as the Tigresses returned to the finals for the first time since 2019.
UST, which needed its twice-to-beat advantage to eliminate no. 3 seed UP, set up a best-of-three title showdown against eight-peat-seeking National University starting Wednesday at the Mall of Asia Arena.
“I would just like to commend my team who really worked hard for this finals appearance. It’s a team effort, everyone worked hard from start to finish,” UST coach Haydee Ong said.
“(But) I will not take away also the (efforts) of the UP Fighting Maroons for giving us a good fight,” Ong added.
UST opened an 86-77 lead with 56.7 seconds left in the match after Pastrana’s putback off a Santos miss following a steal. But the Tigresses got quite a scare when the Fighting Maroons stormed back to cut their deficit, 86-83, after Kaye Pesquera sank two free throws with 15 seconds left.
Santos answered with a split on the charity line in the last 6.2 ticks on the clock to secure the win.
“We know that UP is a resilient team, they will always come back after the first game where we had a big lead only for them to gobble it up. I told the ladies that we have to protect the lead and we did up to the last quarter,” Ong said.
Pastrana scored 18 points, Santos added 14 points, five steals and four rebounds while Angelina Villasin got 12 for UST, who dropped the Final Four opener, 80-88, in overtime.
Reynalyn Ferrer flirted with a triple-double of 11 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists while Tacky Tacatac had 11 markers for the Tigresses.
UST was comfortably ahead 67-50 early in the third canto when UP blasted a 13-0 run to pull within four, 63-67, with 1:11 left in the frame.
The Tigresses responded as Rocel Dionisio, Eka Soriano, and Pastrana connived to restore order heading to the final quarter, 74-66.
