Eagles complete historic three-peat

 Grace Christian Academy made the mother of all comebacks, rallying from as much as an 18-point deficit in the fourth quarter to shock Mt. Carmel School, 69-68, in the one-game championship of the 2012 Coalition of Private Schools Sports Association Basketball League last Friday at the Gillette Multipurpose Gymnasium of the TSL Sports Complex.

Whippet-quick guard Angelo Salas almost single-handedly brought the Eagles back from the grave, scoring 15 points in the payoff period that wasn’t decided until the final buzzer sounded.

GCA was down, 59-41, with half a quarter to go when it began its monumental comeback. A dizzying 21-4 run, capped by a steal and a layup by Salas, made it 63-62 in favor of the Knights with 2:03 remaining in the match.

The Eagles’ rally was fueled by their defense, as Mt. Carmel fell into a stupor and committed all kinds of turnovers that led to easy-sometimes unmolested-layups by GCA players.

Another turnover by the Knights led to Salas getting fouled and trooping to the free throw line to give the Eagles its first taste of the lead in a while.

However, the spitfire of a guard misfired on both free throws. He would atone for those missed gift shots later when he completed another drive to give GCA an improbable 64-63 advantage with 1:30 left in the title game.

The Knights would retake the lead on a nifty inbound pass that led to a layup, but Aaron Pamintuan fouled Salas in GCA’s next possession and the latter canned both charities to give them a 66-65 advantage with 1:02 remaining.

With under a minute to go, the Knights were called for a technical foul, but fortunately for them GCA fired blanks from the 15-foot line to keep it a one-point game.

But with 19 seconds to go, Salas was fouled anew and swooshed both free throws to make it a 68-65 count.

Mt. Carmel quickly countered, running a play for Reynald Cabaltica who was fouled and made 2-for-2 from the line to trim GCA’s lead to 68-67.

Karlo De Leon was then fouled in the ensuring GCA possession and went 1-for-2 to give them a two-point cushion with 15 seconds left.

One more defensive stop separated GCA from a miraculous comeback and that precious three-peat, but Mt. Carmel got its chance to tie the game when Aydan Gagaring was fouled and was given two free throws that could tie the game with 3.9 seconds left in the game.

Gagaring, however, split his free throws and Mt. Carmel was forced to foul Salas with 1.4 seconds remaining to stop the time.

With pressure mounting and obviously tired from spearheading GCA’s furious comeback, Salas muffed both free throws.

Fortunately for GCA, the Knights only had time to collect the rebound and fire a feeble attempt toward their basket as time expired.

Acting coach Genesis Jo Prieto credited his players for not giving up in the championship game despite trailing what seemed like an insurmountable deficit entering the final canto.

“We played our hearts out really. We were down by 17 at beginning of the fourth quarter but the players did not give up, they really wanted to get it and the Lord granted our prayers. Every shot, every free throw was really because of Him. We were able to catch up, make important free throws, and get a lot of stops, defensively. In behalf of coach Ed Salas, we would like to thank all the parents, all the supporters, teachers, students, everyone that made it all a great championship game,” he said.

It was a heartbreaking loss for Mt. Carmel, which led practically the entire game before collapsing at the end.

The Knights got out to a quick start and took a 19-11 spread after the first quarter. That only grew to a commanding 37-20 advantage at the break before Mt. Carmel appeared to have it all sewn up with a 53-36 advantage entering what most basketball aficionados would think as “garbage time.”

Aside from the 25 clutch points from Salas, GCA also got 11 apiece from De Leon and James Libut.

Cabaltica, meanwhile, scored 20 points in the sorry loss with Igitol and Saludes supporting him with 18 and 12, respectively.

GCA 69 – A. Salas 26, De Leon 11, Libut 11, Jones 7, Reyes 7, J. Salas 5, Lee 2.

MCS 68 – Cabaltica 20, Igitol 18, Saludes 12, Montes 6, Taguchi 4, Evangelista 2, Kim 2, Gagarin 2, Kautz 2.

Scoring by quarters: 11-19, 20-37, 36-53, 69-68.