Beatitudes humble LWCM to rule Inter-Church hoops

The visiting Beatitudes Christian Fellowship of Davao City relied on its accurate outside sniping to humble the Living Word Christian Ministries (LWCM-ACES), 87-80 and win the Inter-Church Basketball League (ICBL) last Saturday at the Immanuel Bible Center (IBC) gym in Banawa, this city.

Relying too much on its near flawless field shooting, the Beatitudes surprised the Aces, the CNetsBL champion last year, with Jeffrey Decena living up to his monicker as The Triggerman leading the charge.

Decena uncorked four quick triples in the first period alone giving his team an early 21-13 lead inside the three-minute mark of the opening canto. He topscored with 18 points.

Lean but effective post operator, Carl Marx Villanueva, the Mr. Finesse man from the middle, contributed headache to ACES as he wisely manned his post, scoring 11 points.

The Beatitudes, taller and faster than the ACES, also relied on power forward Scepter John Roda, who chipped in with 15 points.

In the third period, Joshua Lamano, nicknamed And 1, joined in the scoring fray as the Beatitudes erected a 21-point lead, 55-34, at 9:33 mark of the third stanza but the ACES showed its never-say surrender attitude and resiliency to come within five points in the dying seconds of the payoff period, 80-85.

Jeross Ceniza, who had one spectacular drive, fired three triples to lead the ACES with 33 points.

Jethro Dejaño had a better percentage from the three-point zone hitting five triples for 19 points.

Meanwhile, the ICBL headed by Gary Visitacion as commissioner, handed off the special awards to other players including the Sportsmanship award to Enan Gasto of third placer River of God Christian Fellowship.

The River of God defeated the Blessed Hope Christian Fellowship in the battle for third via a huge margin, 85-42, behind the heroics of Elmer Aparice and Gio Guarino, both shoo-ins for Asian College of Technology (ACT) Cyber Knights as revealed by incoming ACT coach Tata Merced who is also the CNetsBL commissioner.

Named the Best in Defense was Edmar Pateño, a point guard of University of San Jose-Recoletos while Guarino was named the 3-Point king.

The Most Faithful were Edu Invento of Blessed Hope, Joy Buenconsejo of ACES and Wilmer Osa of the River of God.

Those who composed the Mythical 5 were Ceniza, Pateño, Decena, Aparice and Roda.