CEBU, Philippines - The Lion Tiger Katol/USJ-R Jaguars used a blistering endgame run to hack out a 78-68 victory over the struggling Gaisano Capital Tisa-UC Webmasters in last Thursday's game of the 6th CESAFI Partner's Cup at the Cebu Coliseum that almost turned ugly in the final five minutes.
Gaisano Tisa was poised to nail its first win in the second round of elimination with a 63-54 lead at the start of the fourth period, but things went against their way from that moment on as Lion Tiger responded with a 12-2 blitz to change the course of the match in their favor, 66-65, on Abulaiz Sulaiman's basket.
Perhaps frustrated by the porous defensive stance of Lion Tiger that resulted into their long scoring drought, Gaisano's rookie center Saeed Quintao, a Fil-Arabian, hit Kyle Lajato at the midsection that sent the lanky Lion Tiger foward down on the floor writhing in pain.
It was good enough that no one from the aggrieved party went to Quintao to retaliate, thus, a potential trouble was readily averted.
For his unsportsmanlike behavior, Quintao was thrown out of the game. Lion Tiger then roared smoothly to triumph anchored on a 24-5 spurt in the windup.
Sulaiman and Renato Abing connived for 21 points as Lion Tiger moved to solo second place with a 4-2 win-loss record behind the 5-0 Prime Asia-UV Green Lancers.
John Auditor was the lone double-digit scorer with 12 points for Gaisano Tisa, which fell to 1-5 in the company of San Marino Corned Tuna-USPF Panthers. (FREEMAN)