Dragons, Tech Mighties make EVO League finals

THE Supportsave Dragons and the Tech Mahindra Tech Mighties brought out the brooms and swept their respective semifinal opponents as they set up a championship duel in the EVO League of the 12th City Sports Club-Cebu (CSC-C) E-League for Basketball last Saturday at the CSC-C Gym.

Supportsave earned a return trip to the EVO League finals by downing the Dyninno Raptors, 71-61, while Tech Mahindra nipped the QBE Generals, 69-58, to clinch the other championship slot.

Sweeping the separate best-of-three series, 2-0, the Dragons and the Tech Mighties will battle it out for the EVO League crown in a race-to-two affair.

Kevin Pineda topped Supportsave with 13 points, while Niño Belande was in his usual productive form as he tallied 10 points, 15 boards, seven assists, steals and a block. Justin Marie Mier added 10 markers.

Ellison Rivera and Ignatius Loyola came up with double-double performances for Dyninno with the former tallying 24 points, 10 rebounds, one assist and one steal and the latter collecting 10 rebounds, five steals, three assists and one block.

EJ Saavedra and Robert Rebaño, on the other hand, led Tech Mahindra with 21 and 20 points, respectively.

Johnrey Girasol paced QBE with 18 points, while Christopher James Durango added 14.

In the Elite Classic, meanwhile, the defending champions Convergys Converters and the Lexmark Stallions forged sudden-death duels after surviving their respective foes.

Convergys dumped the Accenture Sharks, 70-47, while Lexmark tripped the Teleperformance All Stars, 60-51.

Sherwin Emmanuelle Resilla scored 16 points, Kenneth Dysam piled up 14 and Franz Dysam chipped in 12 as Convergys bounced back from a 60-62 Game 1 loss to keep its title-retention bid alive.

Archie Brian Batua led Accenture with 15 markers.

Rocovering from its 60-64 defeat in Game 1, Lexmark got 16 and 12 points from Sylvester Millevo and Vill Duero, respectively.

Marcos Jungoy III spearheaded Teleperformance with 11 points and Ryan Veloso had 10.