Baby Lancers take lead in Cesafi
For the first time in years, the University of the Visayas (UV) Baby Lancers is leading the league after winning all of its four matches so far, while handing the University of San Jose-Recoletos (USJ-R) Baby Jaguars its first loss in four games.
UV pulled off a hardly-fought, 64-59 win in the high school division game of the Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation Inc. (Cesafi) Season 2017 Basketball tournament at the Cebu Coliseum last night.
Following its thrilling 61-58 win over the Magis Eagles last Sunday, the Baby Lancers edged out one of the team that was left unbeaten, the Baby Jaguars, to make a strong case for an elimination-round sweep to automatically make it to the finals.
UV trailed by as many as 10 points, 38-28 before they managed to rally a 16-5 blitz to lead 44-43.
However, most of the time, USJ-R managed to keep the Baby Lancers at bay with John Kirk Gonzaga hitting timely baskets.
But everything changed in the final three minutes of the game, when the Baby Jaguars collapsed under the pressure game of UV, while Joshua Yerro and Biern Anthony Laurente took their game into different perspective to steal the win.
USJ-R was leading, 56-53, when Laurente was fouled by Arnold Dave Ando in an attempt for a triple.
Although the shot bounced strong off the rim, Laurente calmly sank the three free throws awarded to tie the game at 56-all with 2:56 left to play.
Gonzaga had his own share of pressure-packed free throws when Roosevelt Jilianggao fouled him away from the ball. Gonzaga sank both attempts to give USJ-R a 58-56 edged
Yerro then scored a conventional three-point play, the first of the two, following a counter steal to put UV ahead, 59-58. However, Elmer Echavez tied the game for the last time following a split charities at the 2:20 mark.
UV missed their chance to score on USJ-R's turnover but its solid defense allowed Jelianggao to score breakaway lay-up after a steal to put UV ahead by two 6159, 10 seconds later.
Both teams traded missed shots and errors but it was the steal of Laurente that gave Yerro another three-point play at the last 25.9 seconds of the game.
USJ-R tried to make a last ditch effort, but UV's defense was holding as the Baby Lancers walked away with win no.4 after the final buzzer.