MDX welcomes, bids adieu to players

Even as the 2005 MDX Amateur Radio Club Inter-Color Basketball League welcomed back veteran Randy Arnedo back to its fold a few weeks ago, the cagefest would be saying goodbye to one of this season’s rookie sensations, Elbyn Cecilia.

The bull-strong 6’2” Cecilia is scheduled to return to the Philippines after taking a vacation on the island, but before boarding a plane back to Manila, the Laguna native did not fail to impress a lot of local basketball aficionados.

Most recently, the former Colegio de San Juan de Letran Laguna standout played for Micronesian Brokers, Inc. in the MDX and is part of the league’s unofficial all-star team currently competing in the 2005 Bud Cup BANMI Men’s Islandwide Basketball League.

Before that he led MBI to runner-up finish in the Saipan Ice & Water Co., Inc. 20th Anniversary Basketball League.

In two games for MBI, Cecilia has averaged 21 points and also had his fair share of rebounds and block shots. He fired a team-high 28 points in MBI’s 106-84 loss to elimination round topnotcher Poohdeni last Sept. 16 and then totaled 14 points in their 111-93 setback to Arnedo’s 287 Club on Sept. 18.

In two games in the Bud Cup, Cecilia has normed “only” 13.5 points per contest, but that is understandable because National Car Rental/3’s Construction/Aon Insurance, the team he is playing for, is a virtual whose who of Filipino players on island.

Cecilia said he “hopes” to return to the CNMI soon to continue his budding basketball career as well as try and earn a living. He, however, was quick to say that “everything is up to the Lord” while gesturing to the heavens.

Arnedo, for his part, flew back into town in early September following a nine-month stay in the Philippines. The 5’11” Pampanga native said he missed Saipan a lot, but admitted that nothing beats coming back home and being with his family.

The 2004 UFO Mythical Team member said during his “extended vacation” in the Philippines he worked as a contractor and gave his Cabalens a hand in providing menial and major construction work.

Arnedo also kept himself busy on the basketball court and played for the Lubao team that took the championship of a provincial tournament. Some of his teammates in that squad were former Metropolitan Basketball Association player Arnel Garcia and 2004 University Athletics Association of the Philippines MVP Arwind Santos of Far Eastern University.

Arnedo, who was in the training team of the University of the East varsity team in the late ‘80s, said now that he is back on Saipan, his sights are now focused in delivering the MDX championship to 287 Club.

So far, Arnedo has been leading by example and in the team’s rout of Cecilia’s MBI team, he tossed in a game-high 31 markers: this while doing the small forward, off guard, and point guard chores for the Verizon-backed quintet. Arnedo also scored 11 points in the final quarter of the team’s 93-90 comeback win against Cavite-Country House last Sept. 10. The game was his first in a 287 Club uniform.