The pain of losing to Zamboanga in the Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball Association playoffs last year still haunts Batangas coach Cholo Villanueva.

Villanueva said it was such a sorry finish for them so they will play with fire in their eyes in a bid to make it all the way to the championship round.

"For us, we always live in the moment," said Villanueva during an interview with Daily Tribune's Down To The Wire Podcast recently.

"We just worry about what's in front of us. What's in front of us is the playoffs."

"We'll do it one practice at a time, one game at a time and eventually win a championship. We're not looking too far. We're not looking at whoever is our next opponent. We're looking at Imus at how we're going to be playing against them."

As of press time, the Athletics are battling the veteran-laden Imus squad bannered by former Philippine Basketball stars Marc Pingris, Jayjay Helterbrand and Rico Maierhofer at the start of the Northern Division best-of-three quarterfinals series.

More than bouncing back, Batangas is also looking to restore the legacy of the franchise.

Batangas City is the inaugural staging champion of the MPBL five years ago and it is motivated not just to atone from falling short last time around, but also keep the winning tradition of the franchise.

"The Batangas City Athletics family has a winning culture," Villanueva said.

"This management, the ownership, we know that they highly regard excellence. When we entered the team, we also instilled our winning culture, our winning mindset."

"We started at No. 1 last year (in the eliminations) and then were consistent. This year, we're at No. 2 and we're living up to the expectations of our company."

Villanueva's two key players — former PBA players Jeckster Apinan and Jong Baloria — are hungry for the championship and they're determined to do whatever it takes to get the job done.

"I'm really hungry to win (the championship). But we really have to work harder for it," Baloria said. "It's not going to be given to us. This is our best chance to win the championship, but we know it's not going to be easy."

Apinan could only agree.

"Everybody is hungry for the title. We're searching for that (championship) ring, so this is our best chance. We need to sacrifice because it's going to be a struggle to get what we want to achieve."