JEDDAH, 13 June 2003 — After a month of action in the 8th Seiko-16th FBA Basketball Tournament, stronger teams are now emerging and leading their respective divisions.
Arab News registered their second win by beating National Refrigeration by 15 points margin.
Allan Togonon scored 40 pts. and grabbed 12 rebound that earn him the Best Player of the game while his teammate Vic “the orthodox” Dael contributed 17 points by his orthodox shot falling on the hole.
National Refrigeration, Cagers Rosales and Diaz was controlling the ballgame, that’s give them a 14 point lead at the end of the 1st half, meanwhile coach Boy Lucas of Arab News told his boys at the half that “you must concentrate on the game or else were out of this tournament, forget the 14 points lead, just play good defense and we will win this game.”
At the 2nd half the foursomes of Allan Togonon, Vic Dael, Manguerra and Erwin Arquero unleash again their pretty nice offense that give them a 15 points lead for the Arab News and registered their 2nd win in a row.
“Defense is the key of this game tonight”, we have a lot of guys out there who can put the ball on the hole but the foursomes do the damaged again, said asst. coach Ian Jaramel. Tejada hits 3 three pointers at the last 3 minutes remainning of the ballgame but its to late for them.
Al-Majal Service Master is leading in Division A (weak team) with Gulfmaid, Finetool S.A., Zuhair Fayez Partnership, Samsung Electronics and Unilever (Dove) fighting it out for the magic four. In Division B (strong teams) - Junastar Cargo is leading the pack with Hanco Maintenance, Saudi ABV and NAI-Juffali also battling it out.
Division C (open non-rated) is now spearheaded by WRJ Freight Forwarders, while the remaining three slots are still being contested by National Refrigerators, Hempel Paints, Marawi Wizards, Eimar Arabia, Arab News and Dynarabia Fire Rescue.
Last week’s games resulted to the following: Zuhair Fayez Partnership led by Leo Perez, Iftiqar and Abdulrahman Birung beat Saco for Hardware team mentored by Coach Rollie Bernales (91-72). Akkira of ZFP was adjudged best palyer of the game, Hempel Paints of Coach Mel Tienzo won overwhelmingly over Marawi Wizards of KASAPI chair Rudy Dianalan and Coach Mosama Gunting (94-73), WRJ Freight Forwarders of William R.Jao, Bebot Budlong and Jagg Malit proved their superiority in their group when they registered their fourth win in a row at the expense of Dynarabia Ltd. of Jun Natad (72-63).
The triumvirate of Pineda, Projo and Talastas were instrumental in the victory of WRJ cagers. Villegas, Dela Cerna, Oliva and Ngujo played good basketball, said commissioner Hernan Huerto after the game. Projo of WRJ was named best player of the game and received 40 percent discount card from Essam Abbas of Samsung Electronics.
The most exciting game was between Junastar Cargo of Coach Boy Mangilin tand NAI-Juffali of playing coach Alex Vidal.
At the end of the first half, Junastar Cargo was ahead 52-46 through the relentless efforts of Jun Hernandez, Arnold Batarao and Havana. But in the ensuing 20 minutes of play, NAI-Juffali cagers added more fuel and grabbed the lead several times.
With only a few seconds remaining, the scored was tied at 92-92 but a jumper by Dante Rivero changed the score in favor of NAI-Juffali (94-92). In the dying seconds of the game, a pasing error was committed by NAI-Juffali that resulted in a turnover and a conversion from the three-point area by Gary Talastas prior to the sound of the buzzer.
In other games, Al-Majal won by a big margin over Sheraton-Pepsi of Jun Abriz and Raymond Caleon, Jr (99-72) Carpio, Manguerra, Consignado, Bueno and Parohinog played well for Al-Majal. Buenaventura, Fernandez and Bendigo tried their best for Sheraton/Pepsi but to no avail.
Samsung lost in their fourth game with Finetool Saudi Arabia (84-69) due to the absence of some of their key players, Lawigan, Torres, Indal and De Guzman who also had another game at the other ongoing tournament. Dagohoy, Tejada and Eufemiano topscored for Finetool. Officiating is being handled by FBA Officiating Group headed by Benjie Asa and Jing Abalos.
