MANILA – Gilas Pilipinas had a fiery start in the 19th Asian Games men’s basketball competition with an 89-61 rout of Bahrain on Tuesday afternoon at the HOC Gymnasium in Hangzhou, China.
Jaymar Perez and Angelo Kouame spearheaded the offense with 15 points apiece, while Justin Brownlee and Calvin Oftana added 14 and 10 markers, respectively.
Holding to a slim 22-18 lead after the first 10 minutes, Gilas Pilipinas broke away in the second period behind Perez, Brownlee and Kouame to establish a 51-33 advantage at the half.
Gilas Pilipinas went on to pull away in the third quarter with Oftana heating up from the outside and Kouame dominating inside as the lead went up to as high as 34 points late in the fourth quarter.
For Bahrain, Maitham Jameel Almothin top-scored with 14 points. Mustafa Rashad and Ali Husain Rashad added 13 and 12 points, respectively, while former PBA import Wayne Chism ended with five points.
Filipina skateboarder Margielyn Didal moved closer to defending her Asiad gold medal after earning a qualification to the Women’s Skateboarding Street Event finals on Tuesday morning.
Didal, the reigning Asiad gold medal winner in the event, finished sixth among eighth qualified skateboarders for the championship round on Wednesday with her best score of 41.53 points after two runs.
Olympian boxer Carlo Paalam opened his Asiad campaign with a unanimous decision win over Jordan’s Abu Jaleh Mohammad in the round-of-32 match in the men’s -57 kilogram category.
Alex Eala continued her winning run in women’s singles tennis after scoring a 7-6, 6-2 victory over India’s Rutaja Sampatrao Bhosale in the third round of the competition.
In taekwondo, Baby Jessica Canabal faltered against Charos Kayumova of Uzbekistan in the women’s -53 kilogram quarterfinals, while Joseph Chua loses to Nur Gazez of Kazakhstan in the men’s -50 kilogram round-of-16 game.
Team Philippines also suffered two more casualties in judo with Carl Dave Aseneta (men’s-100 kg) and Dylwynn Keith Gimena (women’s -78 kg) dropping their round-of-16 games.
Also ending their campaigns in the Asian Games are the tandems of Jayson Valdez and Amparo Acuña and Franchette Quiroz and Elvie Baldivino in shooting as well as Jylyn Nicanor in fencing./PN
BOX SCORE:
PHILIPPINES 89 — Perez 15, Kouame 15, Brownlee 14, Oftana 10, Lassiter 8, Fajardo 8, Thompson 5, Newsome 3, Aguilar 2, Alas 2, Ross 1, Tolentino 0.
BAHRAIN 61 — Almoathin 14, M. Rashed 13, A. Rashed 12, Buallay 8, Melad 6, Chism 5, Hamoda 3, Kadhem 0, Alhaddad 0, Hasan 0, Alhassan 0.
Quarterscores: 22-18, 51-33, 72-47, 89-61.
