Lipa assures fair officiating in rubber

Fair and square.

This is the kind of officiating everybody should expect when ateneo and la salle, two collegiate teams locked up in a rivalry like no other, square off anew on tuesday for the right to face far eastern university in the best-of-three finals of the 66th uaap season.

No less than commissioner Joe Lipa made the assurance last Friday after the UAAP board lowered the boom on three players and a couple of team officials who figured prominently in a nasty bench-clearing incident between the two teams last Thursday at the Big Dome.

Tuesday’s game, set at 3 p.m. and to be played before another sell-out crowd, will be the fourth and last meeting between the Blue Eagles, the reigning champions, and the Green Archers, last year’s losing finalists, this season. Ateneo, despite losing three days ago, is up front, 2-1.

For these two teams and their legions of fans, this is going to be the "fight of the year." Therefore, a sound officiating is what everybody is hoping for.

"Emotions will be very high in this game but one thing that I can assure everybody is that officiating will be fair. Tuesday’s game and all the games in the championship series will be decided by the players and the coaches," Lipa told a small group of sportswriters.

To his credit and those of the three referees who worked Thursday’s ballgame, trouble started not because of a questionable call or non-call, but a sneaky punch planted by Ateneo’s LA Tenorio on La Salle’s Jerwin Gaco with 1:31 left in regulation. La Salle won in overtime, 76-72, and forged the knockout match against twice-to-beat Ateneo.

Tenorio was suspended one game along with teammate Badjie del Rosario and La Salle’s Ryan Araña. Bob Marquicias, of the Ateneo coaching staff, was also suspended one game together with Manny Salgado, assistant team manager of La Salle, for fighting. They will all be barred from entering the Araneta Coliseum on Tuesday.

"It was unanimously agreed upon by the board that it was one of the best officiated games in the UAAP this season. Then things got out of hand," said Lipa, adding that the referees only erred in ejecting Ateneo’s Magnum Membrere when it was Del Rosario who was involved in the fight.

"Because of the similarity in the features of Membrere and Del Rosario, body-wise and the fact that too many people were already on the court, they committed an error. But it was already rectified. The referees were reprimanded but not suspended," said Lipa.