JOSH Asignar showed up with his golden boot and the defending champions couldn’t touch him.

Two days after scoring twice against the University of San Carlos (USC), Asignar towed Don Bosco Technical College (DBTC) to a sweet 3-0 win over title holder Sacred Heart School-Ateneo de Cebu in the Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation Inc. football event at the Cebu City Sports Center. The prolific Asignar scored a hat trick, upping his season tally to 13 on Sunday, Oct. 13, 2019.

DBTC, which lost to Ateneo in the first round, is now on a four-match winning streak. And more importantly, the former champion is also headed to a likely finals date with last year’s losing finalist University of San Jose-Recoletos (USJ-R).

USJ-R beat USC on Sunday, 1-0, to boost its hold of the top spot at 15 points, with DBTC at second at 13. USC is third at seven points, while Ateneo, which has three games at hand, only has six points.

The only team with a mathematical chance of preventing a USJ-R vs. DBTC final is Ateneo, but it has to beat USC on Oct. 19, Sisters of Mary School (SMS)-Boystown on Oct. 20 and USJ-R on Oct. 26 to improve to 15 points. Aside from winning all three games, Ateneo has to hope that DBTC will lose its last two matches but that is unlikely as the Bosconians’ last two assignments are against SMS-Boystown on Oct. 19 and USJ-R on Oct. 20.

DBTC routed SMS-Boystown, 13-1, in the first round with Asignar scoring seven goals. A repeat performance on Oct. 19 will make DBTC’s final game non-bearing.

Against Ateneo, Asignar was equally deadly. He got the first goal in the 19th and before Ateneo could even recover, banged in the second three minutes later for a quick 2-0 lead.

He finally nailed the hat trick in the 84th minute.

On the other hand, James Lim ended USC’s bid for a final spot with an early goal in the seventh minute for a 1-0 win by USJ-R. USC, which has seven points at third place, only has two games left and is out of the running for the top two spots. (ML)