Christian Maconocido of USC holds on to UV’s Jun Manzo in Game 2 of the Cesafi men’s basketball finals at the Cebu Coliseum. Despite the hard foul, Manzo still led the Green Lancers to the series-tying victory.
CDN PHOTO/LITO TECSON
Manzo helps Green Lancers log Game 2 win over USC
Sophomore point guard Jun Manzo has taken his game to new heights in the finals. And in so doing, he has brought the University of the Visayas (UV) Green Lancers with him.
This, as UV evened up the best-of-five Cesafi men’s basketball finals series up at 1-1 with a scintillating 70-63 victory over the University of San Carlos (USC) Warriors Tuesday night at the Cebu Coliseum.
After scoring 21 in Game One, the crafty guard showed USC that there was plenty more where they came from as he carved up the Warriors’ defense for 20 points – 16 coming in the first half – to help the Green Lancers lead by as many as 20 before weathering a belated USC storm to come away with the series-tying win.
Skipper Franz Arong had 11 markers, including two free-throws that put UV out of the danger zone after seeing their formidable 60-40 lead sliced down to just five, 68-63, with 15 seconds left. The veteran wingman added four rebounds and two steals.
Cameroonian Steve Akomo also chipped in a double-double of 10 points and 10 boards peppered with two steals and two blocks.
More importantly, he helped frustrate his USC counterpart, Shooster Olago, for most of the game before the latter came alive in the fourth to anchor the Warriors’ comeback try.
UV came out of the gates firing on all cylinders and built a 22-14 lead after the opening 10 minutes of action. Then, Manzo fueled an emphatic finishing kick in the second canto with a clock-beating long shot triple and a looping floater that found nothing but the bottom of the net to put UV in front, 41-27, at the turn.
Things just got better for the Lancers from that point onwards as they erected their biggest lead of the game at 21, 51-30, 4:59 left in the third frame after consecutive transition buckets from Josue Segumpan and Arvie Cabanero and a strong driving lay-in down the middle by Alfred Codilla.
UV remained comfortably ahead by 15, 68-53, after a fast break lay-up by Arong and a tip-in by Akomo with 2:19 left on the clock when the Warriors rallied behind Olago and Tagapan, who combined to score 10 unanswered points capped by a booming trey by the latter from the right flank that pulled them to within five.
But with no team fouls to its name, USC ran out of time trying to rack up fouls and Arong sealed the win with two makes from the charity stripe with 4.5 ticks left in the clock.
Afterwards, a relieved Gary Cortes, UV’s head coach, credited their relentless defense that held the fort early in the match.
“We were just more organized on defense for most of the game which helped Steve (Akomo) preserve his fouls and help in guarding (Shooster) Olago,” Cortes said.
Asked about the offensive explosion of Manzo in the finals, Cortes said that he was not the least bit surprised by the development.
“What you’re seeing now on the court, we see it every day. How he practices is how he plays and he practices hard. The kid’s work ethic is unbelievable. He’s an unbelievably hard worker,” Cortes added.
Olago scored 27 points and pulled down 14 rebounds for USC, which is trying to win its first title in the Cesafi. Tagapan tried to help out the cause with 15 markers.