Members of the Sacred Heart School-Ateneo de Cebu celebrate at center court after winning their fourth straight Cesafi juniors basketball title (CDN PHOTO/CHRISTIAN MANINGO).
Games today:
Cebu Coliseum
4 p.m. – USJ-R vs SWU (College, For Third)
5:30 p.m. – USC vs UV (College, Finals)
The University of Cebu (UC) Baby Webmasters brought a lot of heart but in the end, stood no chance of stopping Sacred Heart School-Ateneo de Cebu from capturing their fourth straight championship as the Magis Eagles dominated Game Two, 72–56, to sweep the best-of-three finals series in the 16th Cesafi high school basketball tournament on yesterday at the Cebu Coliseum.
After a dominant Game One performance, the Magis Eagles picked up where they left off as they scored the game’s first 15 points and kept the Baby Webmasters from scoring until there was just 1:49 left in the first to set the tone for the lopsided rout.
Crafty forward Eroll Pastor and sharpshooting guard Jeremy Nacua scored 14 points each for Ateneo de Cebu with the former grabbing 10 rebounds. One-time Batang Gilas guard Jed Colonia, who was named as the high school division’s Most Valuable Player for the second straight season, tallied nine points, six rebounds and four assists.
Colonia was joined in the Mythical Five by Pastor, the Cebu Eastern College’s James Tempra, the University of the Visayas’ Jancork Cabahug and UC’s Gelmart Umpad.
Justin Javelosa started the scoring barrage with two straight triples as Ateneo de Cebu blitzed UC, 15-0, just minutes into the first canto which finished with the Magis Eagles on top, 21-4.
UC struck back and scored the first eight points of the second, six coming from Luigi Gabisan, to trim the deficit to nine, 12-21.
But Ateneo de Cebu refused to back down and pushed the lead up to 21, 37-16, at halftime behind the efforts of Colonia, Nacua, Pastor and sparkplug Andrew Velasco.
UC made its last push late in the third as they pulled to within 38-50 but Ateneo de Cebu easily doused that fire with an 11-1 run anchored on Pastor and Velasco, whose pull-up jumper raised the lead up to 22, 61-39.
Afterwards, Ateneo de Cebu head coach Rommel Rasmo praised his players’ resiliency especially after not having won at all against UC in their previous two meetings this season.
“I just told them to stay positive. I believed in the players and I know that we were capable of beating UC if we just kept playing our brand of basketball,” said Rasmo, who is bidding to become the first coach in league history to win both the high school and college crowns.
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