Sunday, April 22, 2007 Prisaa-7 nails men’s basketball title By Jade S. Violeta Sun.Star Staff Reporter
ILOILO CITY - The Private Schools Athletic Association-7 quintet ended their campaign in the 2007 Prisaa National Games by carting away the championship title in men’s basketball at the University of San Agustin gym here.
Central Visayas carved out a huge 87-74 victory over crowd favorite and host Prisaa-6 (Western Visayas) to add five more gold medals to its overall bid.
With its victory in basketball, the Prisaa-7 team formalized its claim of the third spot with a total haul of 43 golds, 63 silvers and 50 bronze medals to maintain its place from last year’s edition held in Pangasinan.
Overall crown
Defending champion Prisaa-6 took the overall crown with a gold-silver-bronze medal hoard of 96-63-41, while Prisaa-11 Davao City) snared second place overall with a 63-39-64 tally.
Completing the top five contingents in the weeklong, multi-event competition are Prisaa-4A (Calabarzon) with 22-25-36 and Prisaa-1 with 13-30-12.
The Prisaa-7 men’s basketball team, composed of players from the University of San Carlos (USC) Warriors, University of San Jose-Recoletos (USJ-R) Jaguars, Bohol Institute of Technology (BIT) and Holy Name University (HNU), showed their might over their Ilonggo counterparts, as they led from start to finish in nailing the win.
The Central Visayas five under USC coach Jay Ramirez sped off to a 24-11 edge at the end of the opening canto behind the hot guns of Ramirez’s son, Niño Ramirez.
Stretch
Prisaa-7 stretched their advantage to 15 markers, 46-29, at the bend, as the Western Visayas cagers failed to find any solution to Prisaa-7’s searing offense and leech-like defense.
Western Visayas tried to crawl back into the game in the penultimate canto but all they could do was cut down Prisaa-7’s lead to 13 points, 44-57, after Aquino nailed two treys in anchoring a 15-3 rally by the Ilonggos.
But Prisaa-7 stretched the lead back to 65-46 entering the final canto after Ramirez teamed up with USJ-R’s John Malinao and Armand Ponce and BIT’s Ferdinand Lusdoc in unloading a counter-attack by Central Visayas.
Blitz
Aquino engineered another blitz by Western Visayas in the final minute and 47 seconds of the game that cut down Prisaa-7’s lead to just 11 points.
But Central Visayas held their ground as Ramirez and Malinao nailed two consecutive baskets to virtually wrap the game up. Ramirez led all scorers of Region 7 with 24 markers, while Malinao added 10 points of his own.
Meanwhile, the Angeles University Foundation Great Danes doled out five bronzes to Prisaa 3 after defeating the Southern University of Zamboanga City-powered Prisaa 9 earlier in the day.
