Thursday, January 31, 2008 Rival PCC giants fail to show up By Lynde Salgados
LOCAL cage buffs' expectations apparently failed yesterday. But still the 6-foot-6 Philip "Papot" Paredes, virtually the last tall guy standing in the Triangular Meet's basketball competition, made up for some compensating acts trying his darnest best to quench the thirst of fans who are looking for more.
The hulking Paredes-with the fivesome of Richard Kwong, Philip Pania-mogan, Angelo Babia, George Protacio and John Tayong-tong providing support-took the charge of Sacred Heart-Prisaa in overwhelming the Xavier University-Cosaa with plenty to spare.
The well-prepared wards of coach Boy Dacoco then lunged in for a kill against the heavily-underdog team from the public schools en route to pocketing the junior cage title.
Prisaa also lorded it over in elementary basketball used to be dominated by XU toddlers.
Both coming in with a solid roster of players from their respective schools, Sacred Heart's massacre of the hapless XU dribblers was a testament of Paredes and company's cohesiveness on both ends of the floor. Much more as deserving winners of the Prisaa cage loop.
But that was not the kind of match the in-school sports followers were impatiently anticipating.
With Pilgrim Christian College (PCC) of one-time NBC 'Coach of the Year' Arvin Martinez topping the rival Cosaa junior basketball tourney, practically everyone is thrilled to the bones waiting for Paredes' confrontation with the likes of fellow giants in 6-foot-5 John Paul Erram and 6-3 forward-center Paul John Siarot. Pil-grim's reinforcement from Corpus Chris-ti in 6-foot-4 Michole Sorela also failed to see action.
What's the real score?
"Actually, we're just a guest team when we won the Cosaa championship since Pilgrim is closely identified as member school of the Prisaa. Xavier University then was the runner-up so they rightfully deserved to take over in our place especially that Pilgrim has no intention at all to represent Cosaa," explained Martinez.
So why not play instead for Prisaa?
"Our top players from Pilgrim are very much welcome to beef up Dacoco's team. But like the case of his starting pointguard (Raymund Peñalosa), Erram, Siarot and the others also failed to meet the age-limit (1988 cut-off year) set by the Palaro for high school athletes," was Martinez's clarification.
According to Eulogio R. Suaner Jr. of the meet's screening committee, around 15 athletes from the different schools in the city were disqualified from competing in the ongoing Triangular Meet after some glitches in their 'eligibility' papers were found.
Meanwhile, Xavier University's lawn tennis hotshot Francis Casey Alcantara had relatively a walk in the park as he turned in a pair of golds in singles and doubles events for Cosaa's first romps over at the Palaro Center's clay courts.
"My hip is aching but it's a great fun playing here with some childhood friends in local tennis community," beams Alcantara who is arguably the country's most successful campaigner in international junior tennis circuits in 2007.
