Corrections zeroes in on win against Autonomous

Unless Autonomous make a major recovery, victory is in the bag for the Department of Corrections, which was leading, 82-62, Thursday night in the Inaugural PTI Inter-Government/Business Basketball League at the Gilbert C. Ada Gymnasium.

The Autonomous-DOC tiff was suspended with three minutes, .02 seconds left in the fourth quarter.

The culprit?

Your guess is as good as this reporter’s: Power outage.

Power turning off during matches in the PTI caging has been a usual happening at the Ada gym, but players still get frustrated having to go home with an unfinished business.

Corrections was all fired up after pulling away in the third period only to have its momentum halted in the last three minutes of the game.

For Autonomous, it had already thrown the towel midway in the fourth quarter, letting Corrections made easy baskets, but the defending champion had to prolong its agony for three more minutes with the suspension of the match.

League organizers have yet to schedule the continuation of the game, but ATM has an option not to continue the match with Corrections leading by a big margin. In the past, power outage-halted matches were not resumed, especially if results will not hurt the teams’ chances in the playoffs. Last week, Aguguat decided not to continue its game with PTI, which was leading, 78-63, with less than four minutes left in the match. The win was PTI’s ninth in 10 games.

Thursday night’s match had Autonomous playing with a depleted lineup. It had only six players available for the game and it was down to five in the second quarter when Everly Pangelinan got injured.

Autonomous was still in the game in the first period and even took the lead at 20-16, with Steve Rasa muscling his way in the paint, scoring 10 points.

That was the last time ATM led, as DOC began seizing control of the match in the second period with Luis Iguel and Gregorio Blas on the firing end.

Iguel, who was held to a field goal in the first quarter, nailed 10 points in the second, while Blas chipped in eight to give Corrections a 43-34 halftime advantage.

The lead ballooned to 18 at the end of the third period, 67-49, when fatigued caught ATM players, who walked back to defense, allowing Iguel, Blas and Jeffrey Quitugua to make uncontested fastbreak layups.

Corrections was never threatened in the fourth period, as ATM did not have enough manpower to mount a comeback.

Quitugua was leading Corrections with 21 points when the game was suspended.