TOO STRONG
UV’s Franz Arong of UV Green Lancers evades the defense of SWU’s Mark Tallo then goes for an acrobatic layup in their Cesafi seniors game at the Cebu Coliseum. (CDN PHOTO/LITO TECSON)
Tired, undersized and overmatched, the defending champions Southwestern University (SWU) Cobras simply had no answer for the University of the Visayas (UV) Green Lancers and withered down the stretch to lose, 57-48, in the 15th Cesafi men’s basketball tournament last night at the Cebu Coliseum.
The Lancers picked up their fifth win against a lone loss for solo second place right behind the unbeaten University of San Carlos (USC) Warriors.
The Cobras, on the other hand, fell to 3-2 (win-loss) record with one more game left to go in their first round campaign.
Cameroonian reinforcement Steve Akomo threw his weight around inside and had 15 points, 17 rebounds and three blocked shots while super sophomore Jun Manzo added 11 markers, three assists and two boards for the victorious Lancers, whose aggressive defense threw off the normally fluid Cobras offense into chaos, forcing the SWU sentinels into hurried shots and careless turnovers.
So discombobulated was SWU that nobody managed to score in double figures for the wards of head coach Yayoy Alcoseba. Jan Auditor and Anton Pardo each had eight to pace the nine-man Cobras while two-time league MVP Mac Tallo was held down to just seven in the face of tough, rugged one-on-one defense employed on him all-game long.
The Cobras looked spry during the early goings as they took a 32-24 lead into the halftime break after a sizzling 12-2 run that got two triples from Melvin Holper and a couple of transition baskets from Tallo.
But the Lancers tightened the screws on defense in the third and held down the Cobras to a mere six points during that stretch.
BABY JAGUARS NIP DRAGONS
In the juniors division, the University of San Jose-Recoletos Baby Jaguars improved their record to 3-2 with a close 59-55 win over the Cebu Eastern College Dragons (1-4).