Claret gains BEST Center final

MANILA, Philippines - Claret School leaned on a balanced scoring from its crew to answer the best performance yet from the San Beda-Rizal B tandem of Miguel and Marvin Salcedo to march to the semifinals of the Passerelle Division via a hard-earned 56-54 squeaker in the BEST Center-organized Small Basketeers Philippines-Passerelle twin tournaments over the weekend at the Xavier School gym.

Miguel Louise Salcedo and Marvin Marlou Salcedo (no relations) waxed hot with 16 and 11 points, respectively, for the Bedans but the more persevering Claretians worked for the win that set them up against SBC-Rizal A, which demolished Lourdes School-Mandaluyong, 108-40, in the semifinals of this long-running tournament.

Claret leaned much from Enrique Martin Veloso and Juan Eulalio Lejano’s 24 points, which anchored the Claretian’s semifinal drive.

Host Xavier School had an easy time disposing of University of Santo Tomas, 55-44, to make the other semifinal pairing against La Salle-Greenhills A, which drubbed Don Bosco-Makati, 86-40.

Over at the SBP, Marist School-A drew power from the pair of Jason Credo and Karl Lawrence Tabuena as it scuttled La Salle-Greenhills A, 55-48, to make it to semifinals.

Credo had 14 points while Tabuena shot 11 to set Marist up against another tough team in Ateneo-A, which earlier defeated Xavier-A, 57-36, to consistently advance into the next round.

San Beda-Rizal, meanwhile, sent another team into the semifinals via a 57-36 demolition of Xavier-A.

San Beda will face Lourdes School-Mandaluyong, which scored a big upset of De La Salle-Zobel A, 55-48, in the final quarterfinals pairing.