IVBL RESULTS

• After the conclusion of the regular season which started back in July, the second Islandwide Village Youth Basketball League championship matchup between the top two teams, the Chalan Kanoa Hoosiers and Tanapag is slated for Tuesday, Sept. 21, 10:30 am at the gym. The game will follow immediately after the consolation game between the Kagman Cougars and the MTC Sixers who will square-off at 9:00 am to determine the third and fourth place finishers.

• Six out of the 10 teams in the league advanced to the single elimination playoff based on their win-loss record. The Kagman Cougars, seeded third, played six seeded Gualo Rai Panthers Tuesday, Sept. 7 at the Kagman Court. The Cougars won 69-49 in front of the cheering home court fans. Fourth seeded MTC defeated fifth seeded San Vicente Suns, 72-63, at the gym the following day to set up the four-team confrontation thus, eliminating the Gualo Rai Panthers and San Vicente Suns from the playoffs.

• Fresh from beating the Panthers the previous evening, the Kagman Cougars were looking to repeat the performance when they faced a much tougher opponent, second seeded Hoosiers from CK District 1, but fell short in their goal for a shot at the title dropping a heart breaker 83-89 to the Hoosiers. The Cougars easily defeated the Hoosiers in their first meeting during the regular season at the latter’s home turf but the Hoosiers had a different game plan this time around as they executed it to perfection by pressuring the Cougars from the opening tip off and force turnovers which were converted into points by the Hoosiers who celebrated the victory with a revenge.

Four of the Hoosiers starting five scored double figures to offset the outstanding performance of the league’s scoring machine Gyles Ruluked, who tied his own single game record of 55 points. Tony Pangelinan led the scoring attack with 25 points, Larry Mendoza gunned in 20, while Mel Manibusan played one of his best games ever scoring 16 points and kept the Cougar in tact under the boards.

• In the other match up pitting the defending champions MTC Sixers versus Tanapag, the boys from Tanapag prevailed with a 71-70 beating of the Sixers. The two teams met in the finals last season with San Antonio clinching the title. The game was the first between the two rivals since Tanapag dropped their first and only loss to the Sixers back in July when only two Tanapag players showed up.

The two teams were evenly matched from speed to height as they exchanged baskets from the start with the lead going back and forth, but Tanapag had the upper hand at the end escaping a near elimination. The match was decided at the last second when Xavier Omar released the winning shot right at the buzzer. MTC was celebrating a possible victory with about 5 seconds remaining on the clock, but Tanapag took a quick inbound pass and feed their top scorer for the winning shot. Omar led Tanapag with 25 points. Teammates Maynard San Nicholas and Jeremiah DL Guerrero also contributed to the win with 20 and 13 points, respectively.