Palm Cafe douse Fire Eater

PALM CAFE were made to work hard for a 74-66 victory over Fire Eater in Group B of the 2nd Queenielin's Cup at the Brunei Basketball Association court in Batu Bersurat last night.

Jolito Entapan topscored for Palm Cafe with 14 point while Geve Leones and Joel Aying poured in 12 and 11 points respectively in the team's second consecutive win.

Arnold Patricio and Sunard Presado led Fire Eater with 14 points apiece in a losing effort.

Both teams played strongly in the opening period and it was Fire Eater that edged ahead 20-19 heading into the second period.

However, Palm Cafe picked up the slack in the second quarter, throwing baseball passes for fastbreak points.

Fire Eater were not running back fast enough on defence and this allowed their opponents to regain control of the game for a 37-34 advantage at halftime.

Fire Eater were attacking the paint on offence and they were dominating the boards for second chance opportunities. However, Ryan Esteban was throwing a block party for Palm Cafe to help his team extend the lead to 45-38 midway through the period.

Palm Cafe were also utilising the bench and finally carried a double digit cushion at 56-46 going into the final stanza.

But Fire Eater weren't going down without a fight and played with more energy by breaking up the Palm Cafe passes.

They were also shooting well as Palm Cafe failed to put a hand in their opponents' face.

But Leones was up to his usual tricks by driving the lane and drawing defenders before dishing it out to an open teammate to keep Palm Cafe ahead.

A 9-0 run by Fire Eater with four minutes to play reduced the deficit to within two at 61-59.

Palm Cafe changed their tactics to a full court pressure defence and it worked to perfection.

The game was sealed with a bad turnover on an inbounds pass which Palm Cafe exploited for two bringing the scores to 70-63 with 30 seconds to go.

"I guess we were a bit off tonight (Saturday night) as we were overconfident We took it more as a scrimmage since we've been lacking practice to run some plays," said Albert Cenabre, the head coach of Palm Cafe, in an interview with The Brunei Times, after the triumph.

"We also managed to do some full court pressure defence which was good for conditioning, but I believe we have a lot of work to do on defence," added Cenabre.

The competition continues today with Morley Movers going up against Shun Wei in Group A at 8.30pm.

A matchup between GILR Wildcats and Hua Ho Strangers follows at 10pm.

The Brunei Times