Acster Marketing defeated RA-AK Transport 73-56, to capture the title of the 1st United Negros Basketball League (UNBL) Open Basketball Tournament on Sunday at the Tay Tung High School Po Hang Gym in Bacolod City.
Acster’s Medo Tosh Sesay and Richard Albo fired 24 and 17 points, respectively, to lead their team to the inaugural championship.
Acster started the game with 9 straight points before RA-AK Transport caught up to tie the game at 22 in the 2nd quarter. However, a 10-0 response by Acster pushed the lead back to 37-28 lead at the break.
RA-AK mounted a 6-0 run to cut the deficit at the start of the third quarter, courtesy of a Mark Yee triple to draw closer at 37-34, but after a timeout by Acster, Richard Albo, who finished with 10 points in the quarter, engineered a 7-0 run to keep RA-AK Transport at bay, 55-48.
Acster Marketing detonated another 8-0 run at the start of the fourth, as RA-AK’s outside shots misfired. RA-AK continued to be out of sync offensively, as turnovers and passing errors hounded the team while the lead ballooned to 69-49 with under 4 minutes remaining. At that point, RA-AK waved the white flag, slowly emptying their bench with 3½ minutes left in the game.
Joel Lee Yu and Chibueze Ikeh chipped in 7 points for Acster while France Tono shot 5.
RA-AK Transport was spearheaded by Ojoula with 12 points, Nermal – 10, Yee – 8, and Renz Solomon, Jan Egat and Patrick Dave Yulo had 5each.
BATTLE FOR THIRD
Supreme ABF/ SilverGraces took third place with an emphatic victory against Tea Tas/Puff Boss, 133-85.
Alday copped the MVP Award and the P10,000 in cash prize courtesy of Rigpoint-Petrogazz CSAV Titans. Joining Alday in the Mythical 5 selection were Sesay, Yee, Solomon and Landy Sanjo of SilverGraces.
“Congratulations to all the participating teams and players of the 1st ever tournament of the UNBL, most especially to the Negros college players because the tournament was organized so that they can develop their skill by playing against professional basketball players from all over the country,” said UNBL President Jun Ballesteros.
He added that “although the tournament was undoubtedly a success the UNBL will strive to improve in our succeeding tournament. Furthermore, thank you to all the basketball fans who came out to support the UNBL and this tournament.”*
