The University of the Visayas (UV) Baby Lancers failed to book a ticket to the national finals of the 2016 CloudFone Batang PBA after they split their games in the Visayas regional finals on Sunday at the Magis Eagles Arena inside the Ateneo de Cebu campus in Canduman, Mandaue City.
The boys in green and white actually had a stellar start to their day after they beat the Sta. Clarita International School of Iloilo, 78-70, in their morning game.
However, they were upset by the STI-West Negros University of Bacolod in the afternoon, 65-67, forging a three-way tie with all teams owing a 1-1 win-loss mark. This forced organizers to use the tiebreaker to settle the championship.
When the dust settled, it was Iloilo that claimed the ticket to the national finals next weekend in Manila by virtue of their 97-82 rout of Bacolod in the opening game on Saturday.
The CloudFone MVP was Ralph Bajon of Sta. Clarita International School. He was rewarded with a CloudFone smart cellphone.
The CloudFone three-point shoot-out champion was UV’s Jose Zaldy Dizon who also won a CloudFone smart cellphone provided by CloudFone Regional Sales Manager Ronald Estavilla.
In their game against Sta. Clarita, Royce Alforque and Froiland Maglasang waxed hot and combined to score 50 points, 26 from the former and 24 by the latter, to power UV to the win.
The afternoon game was a whole different ballgame for UV as STI-WNU kept in step with them. The Baby Lancers though, blinked and fell behind by 12, 46-58, after their opponents opened the fourth with a 13-3 blast. UV actually caught up and had a shot to take the lead but Dizon missed a floater with seconds left in the game.
STI-WNU’s Bon Balontong then split his charities to raise their lead to 67-65, 1.2 ticks on the clock. UV had one last shot to tie or grab the win but flubbed their last offensive to hand the Bacolod ballers the win.
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