Tristan Albina of the University of the Visayas loses his balance while trying to secure the ball in their game against the University of Southern Philippines Foundation yesterday in the Cesafi men’s basketball tournament at the Cebu Coliseum. (CDN PHOTO/LITO TECSON)
SWU, UV trounce respective opponents to stay unscathed in Cesafi men’s hoop tourney
The Southwestern University (SWU)-Phinma Cobras and the University of the Visayas (UV) Green Lancers stayed at the top of the leaderboard after they came away with contrasting wins in the 16th Cesafi men’s basketball tournament on Sunday at the Cebu Coliseum.
The Green Lancers barely broke a sweat in defeating the University of Southern Philippines Foundation (USPF) Panthers, 83-67, while the Cobras overcame the University of San Jose-Recoletos (USJ-R) Jaguars in overtime, 85-71.
Both teams now sport identical 4-0 (win-loss) records.
The Cobras had to pull out all the stops including coming all the way back from a 46-54 deficit early in the fourth. They appeared to have the win in the bag as they held a 64-58 lead with 1:25 to go.
But USJ-R rallied to tie the match behind two free throws from Miguel Gastador, a putback by RJ Dinolan and a lay-in by Gastador that knotted the count at 64-all with 2.7 ticks left.
Overtime belonged to the Cobras as Luz deftly carved up USJ-R’s defense with timely dishes to Bernie Bregondo. Mac Racho and Tallo put a punctuation mark to the hard-earned with back-to-back triples.
Bregondo and Tallo led SWU with 14 markers each with the latter adding five rebounds, three assists and three steals. Luz had 13, four boards and four dimes.
USJ-R fell to an even 2-2.
In the other men’s match, UV’s dynamic attack was led by the high-flying Rey Suerte, who scored 13 points, pulled down seven rebounds and dished out five assists. He was supported by reserve big man Jayson Balabag, who broke out for 12 points and 14 rebounds. Prized find Tristan Albina and skipper Josue Segumpan also had a dozen each.
The game was tied for the last time at 20-all at the start of the second when UV made its get-away led by Balabag, who scored eight in a 13-3 run that pushed the Lancers ahead to 33-23.
Later, Suerte and Albina made triples and the latter scored on an acrobatic transition layup that gave them a 50-34 halftime advantage.
USPF, which fell to 0-4, was led by the 12 points each of Gilbert Sastrillas and JP Batac.
In the juniors division, the UV Baby Lancers handed the University of Cebu Baby Webmasters their first loss of the season with a 67-61 decision in the curtain-raiser of yesterday’s quadruple-header.
Showing the kind of feistiness that have become synonymous with UV basketball, the wards of head coach Abel Bongcaras battened down the hatches on defense and held UC’s top guns to subpar performances to capture their second win in three tries.
Jancork Cabahug led UV with 19 points and 12 rebounds.
In the other high school game, the SWU-Phinma Baby Cobras improved to 2-1 with a 70-58 rout of the Cebu Institute of Technology-University.