Camille Clarin (left, picture above) stays a step forward of the UE protection and finishes with 22 factors. —PHOTOS FROM UAAP MEDIA
Nationwide College (NU) fielded a brand new coach and a brand new roster in its first sport in 1,044 days. However these hardly mattered Sunday morning.
This version of the Woman Bulldogs regarded simply as unforgiving, pummeling College of the East, 131-47, at Mall of Asia Enviornment to inch nearer to 100 straight wins whereas rewriting UAAP girls’s basketball historical past.
“It was our assertion to the UAAP that we’re again,” mentioned Camille Clarin, who completed with 22 factors and 7 rebounds that went with 4 assists and a pair of steals in NU’s 97th straight win. The Nationwide U output now stands as the most important by any girls’s staff for the reason that league began computerizing stats in 2003.
“New coach, new gamers—however we nonetheless have the identical tradition and objectives,” Clarin went on.
5 others completed in double digits as each Woman Bulldog contributed, which was the foremost factor for brand new coach Aris Dimaunahan.
“We’re simply blissful that basketball is again for the ladies. We’ve been ready for too lengthy,” the soft-spoken Dimaunahan, who took over Pat Aquino, mentioned in Filipino moments later. “Clearly, the women had been raring to compete. And it confirmed that they had been hungry for competitors.”
It was the primary time the UAAP staged a girls’s basketball event for the reason that pandemic struck.
Aquino couldn’t witness the start of a brand new period for NU as he had private issues he needed to see by that morning, however there was no denying that he was immensely delighted that this system is in good fingers. “I used to be not capable of watch the sport stay,” he instructed the Inquirer whereas on a break from driving. “However I heard it was a dominating win. I couldn’t be prouder with how the gamers carried out at the moment.”
Gilas gamers shineAquino steered the Woman Bulldogs to 96 victories. Inside that eye-popping, unblemished run had been six championships, largely contributing to a exceptional change in the best way girls’s basketball is considered—and performed—today.
Karl Pingol tossed in 16 factors, Kristine Cayabyab 14 and Angel Surada 10 within the scoring effort which not shocked Aquino, as they’re mainstays within the nationwide cage program.
“I anticipated Gilas gamers in [Camille, Karl, Kristine and Angel] to steer the pack and I’m blissful that they did,” he mentioned.
Clarin mentioned taking issues slowly is paramount for this crop of Woman Bulldogs that hopes to honor the earlier batches by guaranteeing that the streak goes on.
“We don’t take it as if we’re a part of the whole streak. It’s our accountability to proceed it for many who constructed it for us. So I suppose simply specializing in one sport at a time, that’s what retains us centered,” she mentioned.
“Even earlier than, even final 12 months, the years earlier than, we by no means centered on the quantity, you concentrate on the sport at hand and the opponent at hand and I feel we’ve all the time been fortunate sufficient to have that target every sport and the outcomes will present,” Clarin added.
Aquino, for his half, is maintaining tabs. NU can notch a a hundredth straight win on Oct. 12, when it performs College of the Philippines at College of Santo Tomas’ Quadricentennial Pavilion in Manila.
And Aquino believes that it’s achievable, for successful has been what the Woman Bulldogs have been good at for thus lengthy now.
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