Blazers torch Chiefs in bench-clearing game

MANILA, Philippines - College of St. Benilde walloped Arellano U, 67-47, in a Filoil Flying V Pre-Season Hanes Cup game marred by a bench-clearing brawl that left only seven Blazers and four Chiefs in the final 7:48 at the Filoil Flying V Arena in San Juan yesterday.

“It’s really unfortunate to end the game this way,” said CSB coach Richard del Rosario after his Blazers picked up their first win after two successive losses in Group B. “But we won, we’ll take this and hope to build from this.”

The incident started when CSB’s Joel Tolentino gave Arellano’s Adam Serjue a hard foul which did not sit well on the Fil-Canadian AU player. Serjue charged at Tolentino, leading to the AU bench, rushing to the court, including coach Koy Banal, and some CSB cagers following suit.

CSB’s Ralph Deles and Serjue were slapped with disqualifying fouls while six other Blazers, including top gunner Carlo Lastimosa (12 points), and nine other Chiefs were ejected for entering the court.

This left Mark Romero (13 points), Paolo Taha (9), Jan Tan (8), Anton Altamirano (8), Tolentino (5), Jonathan Grey (2) and Ronnel Lastimosa eligible to finish the game for CSB and Prince Caperal (9), Isiah Ciriacruz (9), Larry Malanday (6) and Nard Pinto (1) for AU (1-2), which played four against five the rest of the match.

“We were playing well up until that point when players lost their head and reacted (immaturely),” said Del Rosario, adding they still have to work on developing the maturity of the Blazers. “It’s also very unfortunate that it involved coach Koy, my colleague at B-Meg. I just hope this won’t happen again and that both teams have learned their lessons.”

“Things like these happen, although we didn’t want it to,” Banal said.

Except for Serjue and Deles who netted automatic one-game suspensions, the 15 players sent off escaped one-game bans, according to commissioner Ato Badolato.

University of the Philippines rode on a big 20-9 fourth quarter run to post a 61-47 victory over University of Perpetual Help in the other game.

Alvin Padilla scored 15 points while Raul Soyud scored 11 points and hauled down eight rebounds for UP, which snapped a three-game skid.

– With report from Roland Quilente