By Michael Angelo S. Murillo
Senior Reporter

ONE of the teams which had a winning debut in Season 95 of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, the San Sebastian Stags look to build on the momentum from it and win their second straight game when they take on the Mapua Cardinals in the middle game today at the FilOil Flying V Arena in San Juan City.

The Stags (1-0), one of the teams touted by many to be Final Four-bound this season, are to face the Cardinals (0-1) at 2 p.m. with an eye to keep their record spotless in the early goings of the brand-new season of the country’s oldest collegiate league.

Playing in the opener at 12 noon are the Letran Knights (1-1) against the Jose Rizal University Heavy Bombers (0-2) while the Perpetual Help Altas (1-0) battle the College of Saint Benilde Blazers (1-0) at 4 p.m.

San Sebastian is coming off a 31-point shellacking of JRU, 82-51, in its first game on July 9 where it dominated right from the get-go.

The Stags steadily built on the lead the rest of the way, punctuated by a 47-29 second half, to book their first victory in this year’s edition of the tournament.

Veteran guard RK Ilagan led the charge for San Sebastian, finishing with 25 points, boosted by five triples, to go along with five assists and two steals.

Alvin Capobres backstopped him with 16 points and six rebounds.

Allyn Bulanadi, who is still nursing an injured shoulder, was able to squeeze in some minutes in the game and finished with seven points.

With the rousing debut they had, San Sebastian coach Egay Macaraya said he welcomed and was proud of the effort that his players gave just as he expressed hope that they could maintain such high level of play and live up to the billing as one of the tournament favorites.

“Each player contributed in this game and hopefully we can continue that. It is nice to see our motion offense is clicking,” said Mr. Macaraya said post-game.

Meanwhile, out to stop the Stags are the Cardinals, who narrowly lost to Perpetual Help, 80-78, also on July 9.

Mapua was in the game in the fourth period, levelled with Perpetual Help at 69-all before the Altas made a ferocious 8-0 run to make it 77-69 with four minutes left in the game.

The Cardinals were able to come within a point, 79-78, with 8.2 seconds remaining but they would not able to go over the hump and salvage the win.

Center Warren Bonifacio paced Mapua with 15 points, followed by Cyril Gonzales with 14.

In other news, Jethro Mendoza of Emilio Aguinaldo College was named the first player to earn player of the week honors in NCAA 95 after helping the Generals to as 1-1 record last week.

The graduating guard drained the game-winning layup with 1.5 seconds to edge Lyceum on July 12.

He also played solid in their debut game against Saint Benilde on July 9 where they came close to completing a come-from-behind win before bowing down, 69-66.

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