Mayor Tom Osmeña national invitational basketball tournament: Laguna survives Pagadian

The Laguna-Spring Cooking Oil weathered a spririted resistance by Pagadian Aquaworld at the endgame to scrape through a 94-87 victory in yesterday's opening match of the 2005 Mayor Tom Osmeña National Invitational Basketball Championship marred by a near fight at the Cebu Coliseum. Games today
4:30 pm Montaña Pawnshop vs. Pagadian
6:00 pm Laguna-Spring vs. M. Lhuillier

As of this writing, the M. Lhuillier Kwarta Padala is still slugging it out with Montaña Pawnshop. The Jewelers were originally slated to face Laguna, but the schedule of games had been altered as only four of the eight participating teams showed up.

Bacchus Enery Drink-Manila and Cavite Insurers had withdrawn their participation at the last minute as they are set to clash in the best-of-three NBC North finals starting Wednesday, while Quezon Coco Huskers and LIMA Construction likewise begged off due to lack of players.

With only four entries, the organizers were forced to change the tournament format to single round robin, with the top two teams at the end of the elimination round setting up a best-of-three championship showdown.

A free-for-all nearly broke out at the final 5:22 mark of the contest and Laguna led at 82-66 after Laguna's Mel Latoreno elbowed Rommel Dayota and then intentionally bumped hard Dondon Polo.

That could have incited a bench-clearing incident had it not been for the referees, who were quick enough to put the situation under control.

As a result, both teams were given double technical, while Latoreno was thrown out of the game. Since Dayota was fouled by Latoreno in the act of shooting, game officials awarded Pagadian with four free throws plus ball possession.

Dayota made all of four foul throws and then Ronan Isidro scored six in 21-10 blitz to pull Pagadian within five, 87-92, with 1:20 left in the game. Dayota had a game-high 26 points in a losing cause.

That proved, however, to be Pagadian's last hurrah as Mar Reyes sank a crucial 3-pointer and later on Rodel Manuel scored on a putback to give Laguna a 97-84 breather, which turned out to be the final outcome, with 41 ticks before the final buzzer.

Dondon Villamin and Manuel topped with 17 points, while Reyes added 13 markers for Laguna-Spring, which used a bilstering 12-0 run bridging the first and second quarters to put the game out of Pagadian's reach, 27-16, early in the second quarter.

Laguna's lead grew to as much as 20 points, 63-43, on Marlon Kalaw's basket with 4:14 left in the third period and Pagadian could only trim the deficit down to only five as time wasn't not on its side. Laguna (94) - Manuel 17, Villamin 17, Reyes 13, Latoreno 10, F. Sanz 9, Corbin 8, Cantonjos 5, Kalaw 4, R. Sanz 3, Caceres 3, Javier 3, Yambao 2 Pagadian (87) - Dayota 26, Isidro 16, Kelo 13, Valconcha 8, Bognot 5, Potot 4, Cingko 4, Guiyab 4, Unabia 2, Cortez 2, Polo 2