Game Recap 23/07/2011

The opening of the 3rd Annual LS Banal Cup last Saturday – 23 July 2011 – proved no less than exciting
in addition to having the first contest for Best Muse and Best Team Uniforms. The tournament started with Mr. Lito Banal giving an inspirational talk having been part of the major tourney for the past 3 years already, while Dennis Lorenzo led the Sportsmanship Oath.  The award for Best Muse went to Ms. Jazmine Hansen from the Manila Motors/CMR Team. LM Money bagged the Best Uniform with their Ninoy Aquino inspired yellow/orange jersey.

The opening games may have looked lopsided with the end scores of both games but it was nothing less than thrilling with all Teams wanting to get a good start by having their 1st win of the tournament.

1st game between Dimond and LM Money Transfer have last years’ Champion paraded several new players namely Mark Yao and Hebron Canlas who incidentally top scored at 24 pts and 23 pts respectively  for the defending champions. Though Dimond led in scoring in all period, the never-say-die attitude of LM Money saw the team crawl back from a 15 point deficit in the 3rd period to tie the ball game 90-all midway of the final quarter.  Dimond, however, regained composure with support from their regular stalwarts, Elliot Shornack (20 pts), Carlo Bueno (22 pts)  and Edwin Carbungco (10 pts) and prevailed by winning with a 12 pts margin in the final buzzer. LM Money was led by their prolific playing coach Leo Mandajos who top scored for the team at 22 pts - while showcasing some of his dribbling skills - followed by Ronald Hidalgo (19 pts) and Ross Ganzan (14 pts).

The 2nd game between New World and JR Panel also had its share of moments with JR Panel having in their line-up 6x former Dimond players from last years’ Tournament. With a stellar line-up, JR Panel proved to be one of the power houses for this Tournament leading by double digits in all quarters.  New World, though, put up a good fight by slowly crawling back with Denmark Dillague(24 pts), Derrick Vivares (19 pts) and Mark Santos  (16 pts). However, JR Panel’s combination of Darryl Burias (30 pts), Joshua del Rosario (19 pts), Ferdie Manuel (18 pts) and Dennis Lorenzo (15 pts) proved too much and they won by a convincing 22 pts margin.

Next week will be a more exciting match with Manila Motors/CMR playing their first game. This team had some beefing-up in its line-up with the addition of brothers Kenneth and Bong Eldialde and last years MVP Kristopher Patriarca. This is not to be missed. 

C U there.