Wilkins Balanga bags 4th leg Chooks 3×3 crown; Birada Cebu loses to Mindoro

Wilkins Balanga led by Cebuano Santi Santillan (second from right) won the fourth leg of the Patriot’s Cup. | Contributed photo

CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Max4-Birada Cebu could not get the job done as they fell 14-18 to Mindoro in their last game in the fourth leg of the 2019 Chooks-to-Go Pilipinas 3×3 Patriot’s Cup on Saturday, July 13, 2019, at the SM Megamall Event Center.

It was a sorry day for the Cebuanos, which also tasted a 15-21 defeat at the hands of the eventual champions Wilkins Balanga earlier in the day. However, they will still advance to the final leg of this 3×3 circuit and will compete in a knockout stage to advance to the quarterfinals.

In the finals, Wilkins-Balanga Pure topped arch-rivals Gold’s Gym Pasig Kings 21-17 and the key factor was the return of Cebuano forward Santi Santillan, who missed the first three legs.

“Laking bagay ni Santi kasi lalo kaming lumaki. Grabe din yung mga shots niya,” said Alvin Pasaol as Santillan was a huge part in the then-1Bataan Risers’ second-place finish in the President’s Cup two months ago.

With Balanga behind 8-9 midway through the finale, the Lapu-Lapu native knocked down a quick deuce to spark a 7-2 run to gain a four-point edge.

“Yun lang nasa isip ko. Sabi ko sa sarili ko nakapag bumalik ako ng 3×3, dapat champion ako. Na-miss ko yung larong ito,” said the former University of the Visayas Green Lancer.

Pasig’s 1-2 punch Taylor Statham and Joshua Munzon rallied their squad back, cutting the lead to just two with 2:29 remaining, 16-18. Prince Orizu though was able to stop Balanga’s bleeding while Pasaol sent Balanga to championship-point with 1:55 left.

Pasaol then made sure to end the game, scoring on a tough runner over Nikola Pavlovic and Taylor Statham with 1:26 to spare to bag the PHP 100,000 pot.

Pasaol and Santillan had eight and seven markers respectively while Karl Dehesa added five points.

Munzon paced Pasig with 10 points, all on deuces.

Pasig and Balanga will enter the Grand Finals on Saturday, July 27 still at SM Megamall as the second and third seeds respectively as both are tied with 310 points. Balanga dropped VetHealth-Delhi 3BL down to solo fourth (290 points) after taking a thrilling 21-20 (1:04) semifinals win.

In the other bracket, Pasig eliminated third leg champs Phenom-Basilan Steel, 17-7. Still, Basilan will enter the last leg as the top seed with 330 points.

The top four teams will automatically gain a quarterfinals berth for the fifth leg that has PHP 1,000,000 and a ticket to the 2019 Jeddah Masters as top prize./dbs