MANILA – Ilonggo Ferdinand “Thirdy” Ravena III struggled in his return but the San-En NeoPhoenix was able to snap its eight-game losing skid in the 2020-21 B.League at Hokkaido Prefectural Sports Center in Japan on Saturday.
The former Ateneo de Manila University Blue Eagles star ended up with five points, three rebounds and two assists in NeoPhoenix’s 83-69 domination over Levanga Hokkaido.
This was the Ravena’s first game after being tested positive for COVID-19 late last month. He missed a couple of NeoPhoenix matches as a result.
Ravena was visibly slower than usual when he was inserted by NeoPhoenix head coach Branislav Vicentic at the 3:13 mark of the first quarter. He took advantage of the extended garbage time to get his conditioning back after recovering from illness.
The struggles of the Iloilo City-native, however, was not felt by San-En in the match with Stevan Jelovac waxing hot to finish with double-double 21 points and 10 rebounds.
Jelovac’s shooting at the onset of the match allowed the NeoPhoenix to establish a 41-28 advantage at the half. The lead grew further to 73-43 midway in the fourth quarter.
Apart from Jelovac, Kyle Hunt also had a solid showing with double-double 22 points and 11 rebounds while Takanobu Nishikawa scored 11 points on a three-of-five clip from downtown.
Tatsuya Suzuki contributed nine points and five assists while Serbian winger Nenad Miljenovic added two as for the first time that all four reinforcements were present for San-En.
Javad Williams finished with 15 points and eight assists for the 4-15 Hokkaido, which missed the services of American import Nick Mayo./PN
