A total of P100,000 in cash prize is at stake in the 1st Mayor Lionel E. Bacaltos Cup Basketball Tournament set to blast off this Saturday at the Bonifacio R. Bacaltos Sports Centrum in the municipality of Sibonga situated 50 kilometers south of Cebu City.
The biggest and the richest hoop tournament in the history of Sibonga features Cebu’s top collegiate teams led by seven-time CESAFI champion University of the Visayas (UV) Green Lancers and the reigning National Students Basketball Championships titlist Southwestern University (SWU) Cobras.
Also tipped as early title favorite is inaugural VAAA crown-holder University of San Jose-Recoletos (USJ-R) Jaguars, who ruled the 1st M. Lhuillier Kwarta Padala Summer Basketball Challenge last week at the Cebu Coliseum.
The rest of the contending squads are the Salazar Colleges of Science and Institute of Technology (SCSIT) Skyblazers, Asian College of Technology (ACT) Cyber Knights, and the Don Bosco College (DBC) Greywolves.
“We want to give the people of Sibonga a new class of basketball entertainment,” said Sibonga Mayor Lionel E. Bacaltos in a press conference the other day at Hotel Fortuna that was also graced by revered sports patron and league organizer Lorenzo “Chao” Sy and a host of local and barangay officials of Sibonga
Commissioner Jose “Boy” Murillo said the competition follows a single round robin format in the elimination phase. The top two teams will clash outright for the championship in a best-of-three series, while the third and fourth ranked squads will slug it out for third place.
The champion will receive P50,000, while the first runner-up will take home P25,000. The third and fourth will get P15,000 and P10,000, respectively.
Each team will also be given P1,000 transportation allowance per game.
Bacaltos bared that aside from basketball, they will also stage amateur boxing and softball tournaments, underscoring his ardent efforts to help develop Sibonga sports up to the grassroots level.
The series of sporting events is among the highlights of the annual fiesta of Sibonga on Augusr 9-10 in honor of its beloved patronesses Nuestra Señora del Pilar and Sta. Filomena.– EBV