MANILA – Ilonggo Ferdinand “Thirdy” Ravena III had his best game for San-En NeoPhoenix so far, but his team suffered an 85-84 defeat to Osaka Evessa in the 2020-21 B.League at the Toyohashi City General Gymnasium in Japan on Wednesday night.
The Iloilo City-native tallied 18 points, including three outside conversions, alongside five rebounds and three steals as the team suffered its loss and dropped to 2-11.
The former Ateneo de Manila University Blue Eagles star anchored NeoPhoenix’s 15-3 scoring run in the fourth quarter that erased Evessa’s 66-55 deficit for a 69-all deadlock with over six minutes left.
Osaka were still up 83-79 before San-En surged to an 84-83 lead on two free throws by Hayato Kawashima and a triple by Shingo Okada. Osaka, however, regained the edge at 85-84 on Takuya Hashimoto’s shot over San-En’s Stevan Jelovac with 3.9 seconds left in the clock.
The NeoPhoenix had one last crack at stealing the victory, but Atsuya Ota threw the ball away on the inbounds pass as the Evessa let the game clock expire.
Kyle Hunt topscored for San-En with 28 points, eight rebounds and two blocks. Hashimoto finished with 25 points and two rebounds as Osaka improved to 5-8.
Up next for the slumping NeoPhoenix are defending champions Alvark Tokyo in a pair of road games over the weekend at the Arena Tachikawa Tachihi./PN
