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IN the battle for third place, Goliath found himself toppled by a group of Davids.

The smaller San Beda College Red Lions leaned on the hot shooting of their guards to topple 6’10″ Junemar Fajardo, who had his best game of the tournament, and the rest of the University of Cebu Webmasters, 82-69 in 2011 Philippine Collegiate Champions League battle for third last December 12 at the Arena in San Juan.

After watching San Beda make the first two scores of the game, the Webmasters answered with six straight to take the first of their only two leads in the game, 6-4 at the 6:52-mark on a triple by Robinson Mohammad. Down 22-17 after the first quarter, another Mohammad triple got paired with one by do-it-all point guard Brian Heruela, making it 23-22 in favor of UC. Outside of those occasions, the game swung back and forth as the two teams got deadlocked thrice in the period. San Beda managed to pull away, however, on a series of transition scores and a triple by reserve floor general Paolo Pontejos to lead by eight at the break, 44-36.

The third quarter saw the reigning, back-to-back NCAA champs extend their lead to 54-43 on a Baser Amer basket. Things went from bad to worse for the Webmasters when Heruela was whistled for his fourth personal on an offensive foul while trying to operate in the post. But the Southern Islands overall champions and back-to-back CESAFI titleholders reeled off six unanswered and sliced the deficit to five, 54-49 on a putback by CESAFI Mythical Five selection Luigi Bercede. But, the rally was short-lived. By the start of the fourth, the San Beda advantage was back up to double-digits, 63-50. With the game on the line, Heruela exploded for 10 fourth quarter points. Combined with baskets by Fajardo, UC hacked away at the Red Lions’ lead and trimmed it to just five, 74-69, with 2:01 left before going scoreless from then on as Rome de la Rosa and Mar Villahermosa placed the finishing touches on the San Beda victory, scoring eight to close things out.

De la Rosa top-scored for his team with 21 points, making nine of his 14 attempts while also collaring seven boards. Villahermosa stuffed the stat sheet to the tune of 14 points, four rebounds, five assists and three steals, while Pontejos, Amer, Anjo Caram, Melo Lim and Ryusei Koga, the five-man rotation in the San Beda backcourt, combined for 31 of their team’s 82 markers.

Playing 38 minutes, Fajardo, in his last game as a Webmaster, tallied a monstrous double-double of 24 points and 24 rebounds. Heruela added 20 points, nine boards, four dimes and two swipes, and Mohammad dropped 14, but needed 12 attempts, including 11 looks outside the arc, to get them. CESAFI All-Star Edward Pao, who led his squad to a win over San Sebastian the week before, played all but a single minute, but went scoreless in the process, missing all six of his field goals.

The game was a contrast in styles as the Webmasters got 20 points off 20 offensive rebounds and gave the Red Lions just seven additional looks at the basket, none of which led to points. However, UC could not keep up with San Beda, as head coach Frankie Lim’s unit leaned on its speed for 22 transition points and 30 points off turnovers.

Despite multiple players being unavailable due to an assortment of reasons, San Beda was able to take home third place , an improvement over its Elite Eight finish a year ago. The University of Cebu on the other hand, once again ended their PCCL campaign in fourth place, unable to improve on last year’s standing.

The scores:

San Beda 82 – De la Rosa 21, Villahermosa 14, Pontejos 9, K. Pascual 8, Amer 8, Caram 6, Marcelo 6, Lim 5, Koga 3, Sorela 1

UC 69 – Fajardo 24, Heruela 20, Mohammad 14, Bercede 9, Aranas 2, Batino 0, Ampoon 0, Pao 0

Quarter scoring: 22-17, 44-36, 61-50, 82-69

(2 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5)

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