Semis cast complete

THE season is over for both the University of Southern Philippines Foundation (USPF) teams following their losses in the quarterfinal round of the 2012 Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation Inc. (Cesafi) Basketball Tournament at the Cebu Coliseum last night.

The Baby Panthers put up a gallant fight as they had the game under control before yielding to the defending champions University of the Visayas Baby Lancers, 80-85, while their college division counterparts squandered a good start to give the second seed University of San Jose-Recoletos a 71-58 victory and a ticket to the semifinal round.

USJ-R completed the cast of protagonists in the semifinal round, joining topseed University of the Visayas, defending champions University of Cebu and Southwestern University. Games start on Tuesday.

The UV Baby Lancers, on the other hand, joined high school top seeds Sacred Heart School-Ateneo de Cebu Magis Eagles and Cebu Institute of Technology-University Wildkittens. The fourth slot is still up for grabs between the Cebu Eastern College Dragons and the University of San Carlos Baby Warriors.

The Panthers came into the game oozing with confidence and high morale and started the game strong and opened it with an 8-3 lead. But USJ-R countered with an 8-0 run to broke USPF’s game.

The Jaguars needed only two telling spurts, an 8-0 run to gain momentum, 24-15, and a 10-0 at the close of the second period that created the double-digit lead for good, 34-20.

But instead of bring life back, the Panthers came from the halftime break all flat as they failed to execute the instructions of coach Raul Latonio, instead they gave up too many turnovers that allowed USJ-R to build the biggest lead of the game at 52-27 with 1:33 left in the third.

Abulaiz Suliman again scored the game high 29 points, Renato Abing added 14 and Miguel Tabaloc added 10 while Joseph Sedurifa was the lone USPF player to score in double-digit with 19.