With a backdrop of fans cheering along the sides of Ocampo field, the Blue Booters fell prey to the UST Growling Tigers, in their second blow-out loss of the season with a 4-0 score, on January 27.

Only scraping one point in the standings, thus far, the home team slides deeper into a winless season against a UST team that fielded seven rookies. In short, it was a heart-wrenching loss which magnified the great void within the Blue Booters offensive game.

Led by their wingmen and strikers, Ateneo came out aggressive in the beginning of the first half. They attacked early, keeping possession of the ball in the attacking half in the first few minutes of football.

The home fans were elated when a pass from Gab Siojo to right wingman Emman Paredes brought the Booters a few yards close to scoring a goal, but the shot was deflected by a UST defender.

Later on, Paredes volleyed a cross to Siojo who attempted a header in the same fashion as their goal against FEU last Sunday. Despite these runs, however, Ateneo failed to capitalize, the score still stood 0-0.

Miguel Tuazon, Gabe Manalo, Tom Cruel and Carl Llado, seemed to be holding the fort with solid defense, denying any entry for their opponents in yellow—but things took a drastic change midway into the first half.

Veteran wingman, Anton Amistoso checked into the game even with nursing strained quadriceps sustained in the match against FEU. The offense by the Katipunan squad was halted as UST pressured the Booters to commit errors.

To the horror of the fans, UST scored their first goal, and the Hail Mary squad were again on the losing side. UST’s Louie Rodriguez’s header went straight to the net uncontested. Rodriguez pounced on a strike that rebounded from the left goalpost. Ateneo keeper Joel Faustino tried to deflect the first attempt but was unable to get up in time to prevent Rodriguez’s header.

UST scared Ateneo again three minutes later with a cleanly struck shot from three yards out of the penalty box but missed everything.

Ateneo did all they could offensively, but attempts by Keith King, rookies Aji Oppus and Paredes were easily denied. The final goal attempt by the Booters in the first half came from Siojo whose direct kick flew right above the goal.

Then minutes before halftime, UST drilled another hole through the Ateneo backline with another goal—this time a header from Shinmar Felongco. The game was very reminiscent of their 5-1 bashing against DLSU.

The second half featured more of Ateneo’s relentless attempts to score as they tried to slowly claw themselves back into the game. Things however, just went from bad to worse. A foul by rookie Gabe Manalo earned himself a yellow card prompting a free kick for UST, which was denied by Faustino.

Ronnel Lagrimas scored UST’s third goal via a scorching curler from inside the box. Then Fidel Kue capped the flood of goals from a free kick, which resulted from Manalo’s second yellow card, and removal from the match.

Ateneo Head Coach Ompong gave no excuse for the loss. He stated “Our difficulty with our offensive transition killed us today. We were not able to find any mismatches. Our team really lacks offensive specialists.” He said.

The Blue Booters look to redeem themselves against UE on Sunday, January 30 (1pm) at the Erenchun Field.