JEDDAH: It was another week of action packed basketball in the 3rd Filsama Basketball Tournament with WRJ Cargo-Carling Sport beating Balo-I 82-80 in a heart-stopping game at the Jeddah Sports Academy court.
Dabarkads beat Mohap by a single shot 61-59 to kick off Thursday’s exciting games. Disquitado paced Dabarkads with 34 points and went on to become the Best Player of the game.
In the All-Muslim Division game between Madalum Clevers and Al Salam Madalum was far and away the better team, scoring a ho-hum 109 -72 victory.
Amer, using his height advantage to the hilt, top-score for Madalum with 23 points while Alawi adde 22 points. For winless Al Salam, speedster Gumbay contributed 20 points. MOG beat rival Al Zugbi 91-84 in the Open Rated C Division. Abbas and Ibrahim made 19 and 17 points for MOG.
In the nightcap of last Thursday’s matches in the Open Rated A division, Unilever again prevailed over Semacs 97-88 even without its reinforcement from Riyadh and Dammam.
Against Boy Corsega’s Semac squad Unilever was supremely confident and got the job done using only its Jeddah stars. Coach Leo Rivera banked on the skills of two- time MVP Diego Domalogdog who contributed 33 big points in Unilever’s win. Unilever found no need for Riyadh standouts Edward Penning and Adrew Vallejo as well as for its reinforcement from Dammam Omar Asmad, Allan De Castro and Eldrin Simpas.
Unilever was in control all night long as Madmad Martinez, fresh from his annual vacation in the Philippines, scored 25 points.
Unilever also effectively clamped down Semacs’ John Rebulado on defense, forcing him to make poor shots under the basket.
Semacs offered some semblance of a fight in the last five minutes of the game when Nonoy Dones and JR Villegas helped cut Unilever’s double-digit lead to five points, but Unilever responded right back with fast break points from Domalogdog and Baloloy Rojo to win with plenty to spare.
In the Friday matches, Modern Offset Printers (MOP) outplayed Facebook 81-73, Tubaran Union beat the winless Sultan Kudarat Wariors with 26 points margin victory in the All-Muslim Division.
But easily the most exciting match was between WRJ Cargo Carling Sports and Balo-I, which will be remembered as a showcase of the coaching ability of bench strategists Rene Valle of WRJ Carling Team and Gary Santos of Balo-I.
In the last 1 minute and 33 seconds of the fourth quarter Domalogdog scored to put WRJ up by two points. On the next play, Yasser scored, was fouled and converted the bonus shot to give Balo-I a one-point lead.
WRJ Cargo retaliated with a shot under the goal, taking an 80-79 lead into the last 54.8 seconds.
Balo-I took the ball downcourt and with 23 seconds left Omo was fouled but he made only one of two free throws to tie the score at 80, setting the stage for a pressure-laden finish.
With the crowd on its feet, WRJ has the ball possession with 20 ticks left under heavy pressure from a Balo-I man-to-man defense.
But Magat of Balo-I gave up an unnecessary foul to the deadliest shooter of the game, Domalogdog, with 8.8 seconds left. Domalogdog made both free throws to break the tie and give WRJ an 82-80 lead that stood to the end of the match.
Balo-I still has a chance to win but Lian lost his footing as the final buzzer sounded.
Lastly, Egypt Team got the better of the young and energetic team of Faisal Park ELS in the last game on Friday. The victory gave Egypt Team the lead in the Open Rated A Division with a 2-0 record in the team standings. Faisal Park ELS dropped to 1-2.
— With input from Ogie Nucum
