Butler forced a best-of-three championship series decider in the Inter-Commercial A with a 78-69 Game 2 victory over Airnet while Ulker and GCT both gained the headstarts in their finals campaign in the 2012 Boy Teves Basketball Tournament organized by Overseas Filipino Basketball League (OFBL) at the Time-out Sports Academy gymnasium on Television Stree, Ghulail District outside of Jeddah.

Ulker handed erstwhile unbeaten Tropapips a 63-60 defeat for a 1-0 lead in the Inter-Commercial B best-of-three series with GTC likewise taking the opener in the Inter-Company Bona fide title series opposite Rabya 81-77.

After a fantastic Game 1 start, the Airnet boys lost the second game against the unbeaten team in the elimination, Butler, which really played well to force a rubber match.

Butler’s double G twin tower combination of Dondon Guanzon and Michael Greason shared the Best Player honors with a combined 43 points. Dela Paz (12 points), Sacramento (10) and Balatan (8 points) supported double G against the Airnet trio of Millar Daham, Alturas and Jack Basilio.

Ulker, whose game started to peak in the semifinals, got the better of Tropapips by playing good defense in the relative low-scoring contest.

After Dorado’s putback, Edwin Gadingan’s mid-range and Taguba’s three-point shot, Tropapips never scored at all in the first quarter while Leo Tablante capped Ulker’s big start to finish the quarter up by 23-10 lead.

Tablante finished the night with 26 points and was named Best Player of the game. Tropapips only scored 16 in the second while Ulker made 15 to end the first half 38-26.

Mohammad and Dorado never backed down, matching the rebounding intensity of Ulker while other teammates like MJ started to heat up as Tropapips cut Ulker’s lead to 3 points at 48-45.

But in the deciding quarter, Tablante found support with Quintanes crashing the boards and scoring underneath, Romero almost perfect on the floor and Roxas hitting two booming three-pointers with less than a minute remaining to leave Tropapips hopeless.

Nava and Abad combined for 42 points at the helm of GCT.

GCT took a 22-13 first quarter lead and though Rabya offered some semblance of a fight in the second period it was all GCT the rest of the way.

The scores:

Butler (78) Guanzon 23, Greason 20, Dela Paz 12, Sacramento 10, Balatan 8, Agustin 2, Garcia 2, Labao 1 Airnet (69) Alturas 15, Daham 15, Basilio 12, Banag 10, Ismael 6, Castillo 3, Bristol 3, Razal 3, Diaz 2

Ulker (63) Tablante 26, Roxas 16, Romero 13, Maisog 3, Quintanes 3, Nunez 2

Tropapips (60) Dorado 15, Mj 12, Taguba 10, Mohammad 10, Gadingan 8, Baluyot 5

GCT (81) Nava 29, Abad 13, Dorren 11, Antonio 10, Carreon 7, Mahilum 6, Monterroyo 2, Abad 2, Que 1 Rabya (77) Aice 20, Salud 12, Eleuterio 12, Nasser 10, Longakit 9, Ronilda 7, Legaspi 7