Babes Boutique outgun YTE

BABES BOUTIQUE defeated Yuan Tong Enterprise (YTE) 86-76 in the quarter-final of the 2009 Brunei Pepsi Cup last night at the Brunei Basketball Association court in Batu Bersurat.

The result means that YTE will have to play favourites Linktech, who are on a seven-match winning streak, in the first semi-final while Babes Boutique, who also have yet to lose in the tournament, will face Chop Eng Seng Keo (CESK) Pinoy Resources in the other semi-final.

Babes Boutique saw four players in double digits last night with Roldan Binas topscoring with 25 points and Hosend Mangoroban contributing 21 points.

Esmond Tan led YTE with 22 points.

Tied at 59-59 with less than two minutes to play in the third quarter, Babes Boutique started a 10-0 run to snatch a 69-59 lead to close the period.

They never looked back controlling the rest of the match to come up with the victory.

"We needed to win tonight (Thursday night). Our players had to play in transition as our opponents played a very slow game," said Kaka Espartero, the head coach of Babes Boutique.

"I only used eight players for the game but it was good that most of them played well," added Espartero.

YTE started out the better of the two teams as they applied man-to-man defence and gave Babes Boutique a taste of their own medicine by scoring quickly on fastbreaks. They shot well from the field behind captain Esmond and Benjamin Lim to take a 30-20 lead after the opening period.

However, the second quarter saw Babes Boutique shift gears taking it to the YTE defence by attacking the rim to score on layups. Babes Boutique relied on their speed to get past their defenders. To make matters worse for YTE, Babes Boutique were also cleaning the boards at both the defensive and offensive ends for second chance points.

They finally grabbed the lead from YTE with a minute left in the second period through a layup by Don Dadis going into halftime at 45-44.

YTE, meanwhile, relied on their outside shooting to keep themselves in the match.

Babes Boutique were a more physical team, but couldn't play their usual fastbreak game in the third period as YTE moved back quickly on defence.

Don Dadis, who topscored for Babes Boutique in their win against Kitchen of Jasmine in their previous match, played a different role in this game. He controlled the ball to set the plays on offence.

To add to YTE's misery, they were also making costly turnovers through bad passes.

Babes Boutique slowed the game down in the fourth quarter to hold on for the victory.

Despite the loss Tony Tan, the head coach of YTE, feels that they did gain something from the match. "Everyone got to play tonight (Thursday night) which is good as I'm still adjusting. It was important that everyone played just for the experience ... this is different from training," said Tony.

The second match of the night saw Kitchen of Jasmine defeat Bukit Ladang 70-65.

The semi-finals will take place tomorrow night starting at 7pm. The Brunei Times