USJ-R Baby Jaguars nip Dragons in Cesafi caging

The University of San Jose-Recoletos (USJ-R) Baby Jaguars opened the first quarter with a choking 26-8 blast to set the tone for a lopsided 9666 win over the Cebu Eastern College (CEC) Dragons in the high school game of the Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation Inc. (Cesafi) Season 2017 basketball tournament last night at the Cebu Coliseum.

The Baby Jaguars’ win came at the heels of their college team’s counterpart’s lopsided 97-60 win over the Cebu Institute of Technology-University (CIT-U) Wildcats last Tuesday.

The Dragons managed to recover from a horrible first quarter performance but the Jaguars could not be denied as they kept a double digit lead all throughout the game en route to a 30-point winning margin.

USJ-R’s lead was still manage- able at the start of the final period but CEC could not score from their end, while USJ-R was shooting at will.

USJ-R’s defense held CEC to just a single fieldgoal for nine minutes and 39 seconds before Vann Joshua Baruc scored a triple and Stevenso Ozon’s made a buzzer-beating jumper.

The Baby Jaguars again outscored the Dragons 24-10 in the final period with Elmer Echavez, Kendrick Abarquez, Kennie Monte de Ramos and John Kirck Gonzaga taking turns in punishing the defense of CEC.

Gonzaga scored the game high 22 points, Echavez made 18 and Johndel Robles finished with 10 points for USJ-R’s debut.

James Tempra topscored for CEC with 16 points and Baruc added 15 for CEC’s first game defeat.