CEBU, Philippines - Cebu Eastern College (CEC) comrades James Sumayang and Nike Montalvo turned out to be real heroes in lifting the East of coach Jerry Jaranilla to an 82-79 victory over the West side in the high school division of the Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation, Inc. (CESAFI) All-Star Game yesterday at the Cebu Coliseum.
The West of coach Ramil Rasmo led almost all the way in the game and were on the verge of winning with a 79-78 lead in the final 10 seconds, but Sumayang made a steal with eight seconds left and then dashed for a breakaway layup for a 80-79 East lead.
In the ensuing sequence, the West committed a costly miscue which was converted by Montalvo into golden points to seal the deal for the East.
Sumayang and Montalvo, both stars of the topseed CEC Dragons, led the East with 16 and 14 points, respectively. Incidentally, no other East player came up with double figures despite although they had a well-balanced scoring.
The West, winner in last year's edition, was led by Alvin Labolabo of the University of Cebu Junior Webmasters with 28 points followed by John Raphael Aranas with 11.
Meanwhile, spunky guard Kevin Juliane of the University of Cebu (UC) Webmasters bested all his rivals to rule the 3-point shootout with final round-best 15 points.
Juliane's feat completed a rare grandslam for UC as it was Arvin Kim Gomez who won the title last year and Moncrief Rogado in 2008.
Juliane sank 24 points in the elimination round to march into the final alongside Jun Michael Cantonao of the USC Warriors, Jayson Nudalo of the USJ-R Jaguars, Giovanni Padillo of USC and Jaymar de la Peña of USJ-R.
As of this writing yesterday, the H-O-R-S-E trick game was still in progress, which was later followed by the East vs. West All-Star Game in the collegiate division. (THE FREEMAN)