THE Province of Negros Occidental (PoNO) defeated Globe Asiatique La Salle on Sunday, 85-71, and assured a final berth against PD888 Handyfix on February 25 for the10th TKP Memorial Basketball Cup Class A title at Po Hang gym, Bacolod Tay Tung High School.
The Province nailed 38 points and imposed its 2-3 zone defense to limit La Salle to only 26 points in the 1st half behind Mark Ramos’ 12 points. And with La Salle continued to struggle with its outside shots, PoNO established its biggest lead at 57-36 with 2:30 mark in the 3rd quarter.
Though La Salle made a 7-0 run to cut deficit to 14 but was free throws of Bayhon and Ramos restored the lead to 62-43 and keeping a comfortable lead to 69-51, with five minutes left in the game.
Ramos finished with 26 points Bayhon had 19 pts, Paez 10, Rex Bayer and Toto Cagayao with eight points.
Meanwhile, Talisay City secured the top spot in Bracket B after holding off D’Twins/RCA 107-101 as Filsino Selection overwhelmed Pepsi, 102-79.
Benjo Ballo-Allo had a game-high of 25 points with an explosive 1st quarter with 17 points to lead Talisay to a 64-51 halftime advantage.
Backstopping Ballo-Allo were Kenneth Montalbo, who nailed nine, and Ryan Hugnatan with eight points. Mike Celedonio hits 14 points.
For RCA, Talisay held an 18-point advantage early in the third quarter, but D’Twins controlled the rebounds at both ends of the court and got off to a few fast break attacks to cut down the lead at 82-74 with Raffy Torrico and Toytoy Española nailing eight and seven points, respectively.
The consistent shooting of Talisay failed RCA attempt to reverse the outcome of the game wherein they came only good to cut down the lead at four points at the buzzer.
On the other hand, Filsino broke away from a close first quarter 25-22 lead and outscored Pepsi in the next two quarters to take a commanding 84-55 lead at the end of third quarter.
RB Chua spearheaded Filsino with 20 points supported by Matthew Yap, Cris Javelosa and Antonio Rogacion with 10 points a piece while Pepsi relied on Dindo Artango and Ronilo Gonzalez with 20 points, separately with Warren Agramon adding 10.
Games on Tuesday features the knockout quarterfinals matches of Class C with Number 3 My SPaghetti house going up against Cebu Sendai Motor Sales, while Number 4 GT Net Pos Digital meet Number 5 Foodman. (JSG/With Stephen Tan/Scoop-Bacolod)