ABL: Patriots pull out 75-69 victory over Satria Muda

Manila, Saturday, October 30, 2010 — The visiting Satria Muda led at the end of each of the first three quarters but could not finish off the Philippine Patriots as they succumbed 69-75 to the unbeaten league leaders.

The Patriots are a perfect 5-0 for this second ASEAN Basketball League season while Satria Muda are 1-4 and find themselves propping up the six-team league.

The Patriots’ head coach was still not satisfied with what he saw.

“We played inconsistently. We had a lousy practice during the week, but I told the players they can’t just come into a game and play. They have to earn victory,” coach Alas was quoted as saying by the Jakarta Globe.

Hampered by a domestic ruling that prevents them from fielding the same player in two concurrent tournaments, Satria Muda have been forced to go with a lean team in the ABL while competing at the same time in the Indonesian Basketball League. As a result, the Jakarta club are beginning to resemble the Brunei Barracudas from the first season.

Satria Muda played only with a seven-man roster, with imports Mario Wuysang (37:03), Marcus Morrison (40:00), Francis Adriano (38:35), Celedon Camaso (31:35), Antoine Broxsie (40:00) playing the bulk of the game. Doni Ristanto (8:16), Robert Sanz (0:29) and Fattah Arifin (4:22) contributed minimally. Sanz is a replacement for fellow Filipino Ronald Capati who was dropped.

Satria Muda’s Marcus Morrison had a game-high 35 points while pulling down 10 rebounds. His teammate Mario Wuysang was also in double digits with 13 points.

Ernesto Billiones led the Patriots with 20 points while his teammate Donald Little contributed a double-double with 11 points and 19 rebounds.

Trailing by six (53-59) at the start of the fourth quarter, the Patriots tied it up at 63-63 with 4:06 to go. A 12-6 run as the clock wound down secured them victory in a fourth quarter where the scored a total of 22 points while limiting Satria Muda to only 10.

Satria Muda will return home to Jakarta to entertain the KL Dragons (3-2) on Wednesday, November 3rd while the Patriots visit the Brunei Barracudas (1-4) on Saturday, November 6th.