THE ATENEO Lady Eagles lost against the National University (NU) Lady Bulldogs, 36-70 on Sunday, September 13 at the Blue Eagle Gym in Quezon City.

Looking to rebound from a crushing loss last week at their opening game, the Lady Eagles came out of the gate strong by scoring the first basket of the game. Setting the tone early in the game seemed to be their first priority, as their slow start last week hampered their performance the rest of the game.

History would repeat itself in this game, however. The Blue and White had difficulty scoring the rest of the way, making only one other basket and finding themselves down 5-25 at the end of the quarter.

What overwhelmed the Lady Eagles in this game was NU’s size, length, and strength. From the get-go, it was evident that each of the Ateneo’s players was already at a height disadvantage. This led to the Lady Bulldogs easily being able to shoot over their counterparts while also playing bully ball to constantly muscle their way through the post for easy layups.

On the defensive end, NU was able to contain the Blue and White’s attack by constantly being able to switch on players due to their length. This resulted not only in multiple stolen balls, but numerous blocked shots as well.

NU put their fingerprints all over this game from the beginning and never looked back, leading by as much as 36 points. Meanwhile, poor shooting marred the Ateneo as they shot only 22% from the field overall.

The lone bright spot was Danica Jose, who shot a sterling 4/8 from the field and 4/5 from the charity stripe en route to 12 points to lead the Lady Eagles. Aside from Jose, only four others were able to score in the game.

This loss puts the Lady Eagles at 0-2 in the elimination round standings of the 78th season of the University Athletic Association of the Philippines.

Their next game will be against the University of the Philippines Fighting Maroons at 9 AM, Thursday, September 13 at the Blue Eagle Gym in Quezon City.

UPDATED: September 14. 2015 10:55 am