Individual awardees (from left) Junrey Cabarrubias of Kyocera, Niño Belande of Supportsave, Jan Gabest of 1&1 Marauders, Sam Hermosa of Telstra-Teletech and Jervis Sildura.
They came into the match facing possible elimination but the Supportsave Dragons refused to roll over and die as they beat up the Telstra-Teletech Boomerangs, 89-75, to force a winner-take-all Game 3 in the EVO League Finals of the 11th City Sports Club-Cebu (CSC-C) E-League for Basketball last Sunday at the CSC-C Gym.
A slow start heavily contributed to the Dragons’ narrow 83-84 loss in Game 1. They seemed to have learned from that mistake as they jumped to a 29-15 start in Game 2.
The Dragons maintained the 14-point lead at the half, 52-38, before the Boomerangs made a mini run in the third to move within 59-67 with one quarter to play.
Supportsave completely shut the door on Telstra by staging a 22-16 run in the fourth, sealing the critical victory that paved the way for the sudden-death match slated Oct. 24 at the same venue.
Niño Belande and Germaine Jo Guarisma formed a deadly one-two punch for the Dragons with the former tallying 23 points, 13 rebounds, five assists, three steals and one block and the latter collecting 22 points, eight rebounds, four assists, four steals and a block.
Gerald Mari Baritua chipped in 12 points for Supportsave.
After a 28-point, 13-rebound performance in Game 1, Sam Jordan Hermosa had another solid showing as he cashed in 34 points, 15 rebounds, eight assists and three steals. He was backed by Jaygard Vios and Jasper Diaz, who finished with 17 and 12 points, respectively.
Diaz duplicated his double-double performance in Game 1 as he also had 16 rebounds to go with three blocks and two steals.
Despite the loss, Telstra-Teletech top gun Hermosa went home with something to celebrate after he was named the EVO League Most Valuable Player (MVP).
Hermosa was joined in the Mythical 5 by Belande, Kyocera’s Ariel Edera, and Junrey Cabarrubias and Stephen De Leon of Author Solutions Inc.
Ralph Belarmino of the 24/7 Cagers won the Rookie of the Year accolade.
Statistical leaders were also recognized.
Jan Gabest of the 1&1 Marauders topped the steals department with 5.25 steals per game, while Belarmino was awarded the scoring champion with an eye-popping average of 33.88 points a game.
Belande was the king of rebounds with 14.33 boards a game, while Edera was the top passer with 5.43 assists per game.
Teletech’s Jervis Sildura was the leader in blocks after averaging 3.56 block per outing.