26 September 2019
CEBU CITY—The three-time defending champions University of the Visayas (UV) Green Lancers showed they are still the team to beat this season as they took down the erstwhile unbeaten Southwestern University (SWU)-Phinma Cobras, 71-66, in the college division of the Cesafi men’s basketball tournament on Thursday, September 26, at the Cebu Coliseum on Thursday.
UV displayed what a 13-time champion is made of as they survived a tight contest to tally its fourth win in five games that earned them the number one spot in the team standings.
UV became the first team to beat SWU this season, pulling the Cobras down to 3-1 (win-loss).
Froiland Maglasang led UV’s convincing win by firing 14 points spiked by four three-pointers. Michael Maestre and Lass Coulibally had 12 markers each.
Coulibally, UV’s foreign student-athlete from Ivory Coast, flexed his muscles in the paint and tallied 16 rebounds, two steals and three blocked shots.
SWU-Phinma’s own reinforcement Lamine Thiam was hounded by UV’s porous defense all-game long and was limited to just 13 points on a woeful three-for-14 shooting from the field.
SWU looked good in the closing minutes when it took a 64-61 lead but UV staged a 9-2 run to post a 70-66 lead in the final 59.6 seconds of the game.
Back-to-back missed by William Polican and Shaquille Imperial sealed SWU’s downfall as Gileant Delator iced UV’s win with a split free throw.
In the high school division, Vincent Escobido scored 11 of his 15 points in the fourth quarter to lead the Don Bosco Greywolves to a 73-53 win over University of San Carlos (USC) Baby Warriors.
Don Bosco improved to 2-2, while USC fell to 1-3.
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Photo courtesy of Cesafi Media Bureau
