COBRAS OPEN WITH A HISS, WEBMEN TORN
Underdog to the Webmasters, Cobras held on despite a Cameroonian barrage, finishing with a commanding 71-62
The Southwestern University (SWU) Cobras exacted revenge for its opening day loss to the University of Cebu (UC) Webmasters after scoring a commanding 71-62.
That started their second-round campaign on a strong note in the college division of the 2017 Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation Inc. (Cesafi) basketball tournament at the Cebu Coliseum last night.
Playing the underdogs to the higher-ranked Webmasters, the Cobras held their ground steady in the second half, despite another monstrous performance by UC Cameroonian center Frederick Elombi Ngoh, to log its second win in the competition.
Coming from an 80-71 loss to University of Southern Philippines Foundation (USPF) Panthers last Aug. 31, SWU had a good start, leading 6-1 before UC dropped a 14-2 run for a 15-8 lead midway to the first quarter.
UC was still in control of the second period building an 8-point lead twice, 22-14 and 2618, before SWU had an 11-2 blitz that put the Cobras ahead by a precarious 29-28 lead at the halftime break.
The Webmasters then dropped a 6-2 blast in the first two minutes and 30 seconds of the third period before everything went awfully wrong.
SWU then held UC scoreless for the next six minutes while scoring 16 straight points, to build a 45-34 lead, before Michael Jay Gonzaga broke the Webmasters silence with a triple at the 1:37 mark.
However, the Cobras were not finished yet as they finished the penultimate quarter with a 5-0 blast, including Daryl Nazareno’s buzzer beating triple that put SWU ahead 50-37.
Elombi tried to rally UC but his seven straight points at the start of the final period were not enough to break the spirits of the Cobras who wisely played defense and shooting accurately to hand the Webmasters a bad start in the second round.
Gerald Fernandez who went 6-of-10 from the field topscored for SWU with 16 points, Edmundo Bayhonan who stood his ground against Elombi finished with 15 markers.
Jovanie Luz and Mark Racho scored 11 each as SWU improved to 2-5, while Elombi scored the game-high 25 points and grabbed 15 rebounds and John Jabello added 10 points for UC.
Unfortunately, the SWU Baby Cobras failed to score a double victory as they lost to the Cebu Eastern College (CEC) Dragons 60-56 in the high school game.
The win moved CEC to 3-3 while dropping SWU to 2-5. /