POURING it all in the final minutes of the game, Huminova Tigers dismissed JSY Transport, 73-64, while AACI Transport proved to be too classy for Basecom as it claimed another win, 101-68, in the Fil-Sino All Asian Countertrade 2nd Conference Inter-Color tournament at the Po Hang Gym of Bacolod Tay Tung High School.
A quarter court triple from RB Chua broke a 62-all deadlock between the Tigers and the Transport guys even as Chris Javelosa immediately responded with an offensive putback to cut the lead to a single digit.
Javelosa’s basket was to JSY’s last score in the fourth quarter as the Tigers iced the game with an 8-0 run.
While JSY managed to keep afloat with its tight defense and offensive putbacks, the players struggled with their outside shooting in the closing minutes. In contrast, the Tigers were bailed out by their timely perimeter and three-point jumpers.
Huminova got away with a one-point lead at halftime, 34-33, with Arvin Chua, Mark Antonio, and Jan Jan Lopue leading the surge, while Sidney Chua and Monroe Chua paced JSY.
In the third quarter, Richard Co scored six points in the Tigers’ 8-0 opening run for a 42-33 lead, but Garret Tabanao scored five points to anchor JSY’s comeback and tie the game at 42-all. The Tigers, however, refused to relinquish its hold on the one-point lead as the quarter ended 50-49.
At the end of the game, Richard Co and Arvin Chua scored an identical 14 points to lead the Tigers while the trio of Monroe Chua also finished with 14 for JSY.
Meanwhile, Basecom committed costly turnovers resulted to easy baskets for Mark Binguan and Daniel Chiu as they carried AACI Transport to a 28-17 first quarter lead even as Brian Tan delivered eight points for Basecom.
Stanley Bontigao’s slashing drives netted him 13 points and Vincent Javelosa added five markers, but it hardly made a dent on AACI Transport lead as Basecom failed to tame Julius Teruel and Rey Pandoro who hit their mark. Transport maintained a 51-39 lead by halftime.
In the final half, Transport’s balanced offensive silenced Basecom as Teruel registered a total of 30 points for the winning team, Daniel Chiu chipped in 18, Pandoro 1 and Binguan 11, while Bontigao led Basecom with 19 points, Brian Tan added 14, and Vincent Javelosa had 11.
In today’s first game, Chemisolutions will face AACI Trading while AACI Farms meets Organic Solutions in the second game. (Stephen Tan)