Estolas, Cortez lead mythical five

Dalewin Cortez of champion team Aqua Resort Club and regular season MVP Jhun Estolas of runner-up Mobil spearheaded the mythical five selection of the 2004 Mobil Oil Marianas Co-ed Invitational Basketball Tournament.

Cortez, the 6’3” pivot that anchored Aqua Resort’s inside game, paced the hoteliers in scoring with a 21.8 points per game average in eight games during the eliminations. A factor in both offense and defense, Cortez fired a team-high 32 points in Aqua Resort’s title-clinching 103-93 win last Sunday.

Estolas, for his part, was the tournament’s leading scorer in the eliminations. The 5’7” lightning-quick guard normed more than 26 points in nine games and erupted for a team-high 51 points in Mobil’s loss in the championship.

Joining the two in the mythical first five were Cortez’ teammate Marco Garcia, Dai-Ichi Hotel’s Tom Alegre, and former IVYBL most valuable player Kevin Cequena of Toyota.

Garcia finished 12th in scoring with an average of 16 points per contest and showed a smooth stroke from rainbow country especially in the finals. He also was named Rookie of the Year. Bull-strong Alegre, meanwhile, led an overachieving but cohesive Dai-Ichi squad to a second runner-up finish after averaging 14.6 a game. Cequena played all five positions for Microl and put up a third-best 22.8 points per game average.

The Mobil second five consisted of Commonwealth Utilities Corp. shot blocker extraordinaire Jawn Joyner, his teammate bruiser Oscar Sablan, Commonwealth Ports Authority high-flyer Edgar Pangelinan, Hyatt Regency Saipan’s Mike Umali, and Dai-Ichi’s Adonis Macoto.

Joyner was a stonewall on defense and also averaged 14.25 buckets a game. Sablan was CUC’s leading scorer pouring in a fourth-best 23.2 per contest. Pangelinan recorded a tourney-high 64 points in a game against Pacific Development Inc. last April 27, and Umali paced a shorthanded Hyatt team with a 17.1 clip for the season. Macoto normed 18.6 per game in a year that saw Dai-Ichi finish with its best season ever.

Beverly Igitol of Mobil was voted MVP of the women after pumping in 28.3 points a game for the season. Last year’s MVP Shiho Kashiwagi was the scoring champion, making a whopping 34.1 points a game.

In team awards, Aqua Resort won the championship trophy, Mobil the pennant and runner-up plums, Dai-Ichi got third place, and Toyota settled for the fourth place trophy. CPA also took home the sportsmanship award.

Tournament coordinator Abner Venus said he would like to thank Mobil Oil Marianas, especially to Jojo Dadivas, for again sponsoring the invitational. He also extended his appreciation to all the participating teams and their mother companies for a well-played season and congratulated Aqua Resort for winning the championship.