PH cagebelles lose focus, falter against Thais in overtime; bridge team adds one more gold

Kelapa Gading, Jakarta—The undersized Philippine women’s basketball team played like champions and moved within 1.5 seconds of Southeast Asian Games history—only to come to grief in the end.

The shot at the Games’ first-ever basketball golden double vanished after the Filipinas failed to cling to a three-point lead in regulation and dropped a heartbreaker to Thailand in overtime, 73-75, to settle—at best—for the silver medal.

Later, the men’s team broke away from Malaysia with a small, running five in the third period for a 103-74 win that put them in the gold-medal match on Sunday against either Thailand or Indonesia at the BritAma Arena here.

The Philippines managed just one gold yesterday courtesy of its bridge mixed team. The country has a 20-24-50 (gold-silver-bronze) tally for sixth place.

After showing up the taller Thais all game long, the Filipinas missed one crucial stop and allowed the enemy to forge extension at 64-all. A three-pointer by Jantakan Junthamas beat the buzzer.

The Filipinas then lapsed into a spate of errors and bungled three free throws in extra time as Thailand regained regional supremacy.

The loss is the bitterest for the Philippines in the sport. After erasing an 11-point deficit in the first half, the Filipinas moved ahead, 64-61, time down to 13.7 seconds, on a Merenciana Arayi free throw off the final foul of 6-foot-4 Thai center Banmoo Naruemol.

The Thais actually had two more possessions after that and they missed the first with Arayi snaring the rebound only with play to be stopped with 1.5 ticks left.

Thinking she was fouled and would be awarded charities, Arayi and the rest of the team whooped it up in center court. But referee Donald Quinn ruled the Filipina forward had travelled and awarded possession to the Thais. Inquirer with correspondent Jonas Panerio