Lancers play it cool in face of adversity

CEBU, Philippines - The University of the Visayas Green Lancers showed great resolve in the face of adversity by winning the pre-season games of the Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation, Inc. over the weekend.

The Lancers lost All-Star guard June Kent Manzo and power forward Leonard Santillan, who dumped them in favor of the University of the Philippines Maroons in the Universities Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) based in Manila, but it did not dampen their spirits somehow.

In fact, the troubles that smacked their way even made the Lancers stronger and brought their competitiveness to a higher level as evident by their showing in the 8th CESAFI Partner's Cup where they snatched the championship via two-game sweep of the University of San Jose-Recoletos Jaguars last Saturday at the Cebu Coliseum.

Overall, the Lancers dropped only one out of 11 games in the month-long joust.

"Sometimes, the blessings are not in what God gives, but in what he takes away... Congratulations on coming out stronger as a team, dear Lancers! Congratulations to the captain of the ship, coach Gary Cortes," a proud UV assistant coach Van Halen Parmis posted on his Facebook page.

Though the presence 6-foof-5 Cameroonian Bassieru Sackor was a factor, it can't be denied that the local players led by the vaunted tandem of Rey Suerte and Josue Segumpan fought brilliantly and have largely contributed to UV's latest success.

In the wake of Manzo's departure, 19-year-old Sheldon Gahi from Mandaue City gamely come out of his shell to establish himself as one of UV's top playmakers.

Stepping up bigtime, Gahi's most notable performance was when he charted a game-high 20 points, including six straight in the crucial stretch that sealed the Lancers' 86-79 triumph over the University of Cebu Webmasters last June 4.

With Santillan out for good, there seems to be no problem also for the Lancers with towering forwards Jerome Napao, Michael Macion and Jason Balabag fortifying their frontcourt machinery with authority.

"The way we (UV coaching staff) look at it, our players are fired-up and more inspired now. Actually, they also have that basketball talent, but it's just so happened that Manzo and Santillan were more exposed because of their playing time being the veterans of the team. So now they proved that they can win championship without them and they proved it right," said UV head coach Gary Cortes.

With Suerte and Segumpan showing vast improvements in all facets of their game plus their acquisition of a prolific long-range bomber in Tristan Albina from Dumaguete and the underdeveloped but promising 6-foot-4 giant Leonard Degoma from Capiz, the Lancers are indeed a force to reckon with in the forthcoming CESAFI cage wars.

Cortes humbly admitted though that there's still a lot of work to be done in their quest to bag the coveted CESAFI title that slipped out of their hands for the past two years.

"The CESAFI season is just around the corner. We are going to start with back to basic basketball, play a couple of invitational games to toughen up our team so that by the time the regular season starts, we'll be ready for whatever challenges that lie ahead of us," said Cortes. (FREEMAN)