By Jay Leon Guerrero

The Guam National Basketball team improved to 2–0 in the Guam Invitational Basketball Tournament (GIBT) with an 82-72 scrappy victory over National University (Manila, Philippines) Tuesday night at University of Guam Calvo Field House.

The game went back-and- forth until the fourth quarter with Guam pulling away thanks to a big boost from their bench players.

Russ Wesley and Ben Borja provided valuable minutes off the bench to give them the victory. Borja scored five points in two minutes and Wesley hit a huge three-pointer to secure the victory for Team Guam.

Guam will now face the University of the East (Manila) tonight at 8 pm in a showdown between the two undefeated teams.

BLAS, BRADLEY GET THE OFFENSE STARTED

Guam established an early lead with Joe Blas and Ollie Bradley leading the offense to go ahead 19-14 after the first quarter. Team Guam ran a series of motion plays to find the open player, both Blas and Bradley got to the open spot and made clutch buckets.

National University opened up the second quarter on a 4-0 run with Michael Pate scoring off an offense rebound. Matthew Aquino later scored off a feed from Pate. Earvin Jose from Team Guam made a long two point basket to halt the run, but National University countered with Jay Ahyandro hitting a deep three-pointer to tie the game at 21-21.

Ahyandro hit a floater and then dished to Nico Abatayo to surge ahead 27-24 for the first time in the contest which forced Guam coach EJ Calvo to call a timeout with 6:02 left in the second period.

Guam stormed back up at halftime to go ahead 37-36 with Willie Stinnett scoring six points to give Guam the slim halftime lead.

Stinnett, Guam’s starting point guard, battled in the paint with the big guys and scored from offensive rebounds. Stinnett had 12 points and six rebounds for the game.

It was a back-and- forth third quarter, but Guam went up 59-54 with Russ Wesley scoring late in the third quarter to give Guam a slight advantage. Wesley opened up the fourth quarter with a 3-pointer off an inside-outside feed from older brother Mekeli to help Guam take a 62-54 advantage, their largest lead of the game. National University came back with Matthew Salem hitting a 3-pointer to cut the lead to 67 – 65 with 5:43 left in the 4th quarter.

BIG BEN TAKES OVER

With three and a half minutes remaining Borja scores five quick points to put Guam ahead 74-65. Wesley added another insurance basket with 2:36 remaining to seal the victory. But the icing on the cake was an alley oop dunk from Curtis Washington via a Darren Hechanova lob assist on a break away to get the fans cheering.

Washington had another monster game with 20 points, 12 rebounds, and five blocks. Blas recorded a double-double as well for Team Guam with 10 points and 10 rebounds. Wesley had 11 clutch points off the bench

“They were keeping it close the whole game. I just wanted to play some good defense and hit some open shots . They were clogging the middle so we had to hit some outside shots,” said Wesley.

Ahyandro scored 15 points to lead National University, Salem scored 14 points and grabbed six rebounds.

In the opening game, University of the East (2-0) crushed the UOG Tritons 113-40