Sports scribes bag first NPC title in two decades

MANILA, Philippines – Pakitang Gilas, composed of sports scribes covering different beats, ruled the NPC basketball tournament over the weekend, ending more than two decades of frustration in this elite annual event.

The Titan-backed Sports Scribes ran roughshod over the Customs squad, 70-54, in their winner-take-all finals held at the Congress gym over the weekend.

Led by Cedelf Tupas of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, the Sports Scribes bucked a slow start in the second half to turn a close encounter into a rout.

Tupas knocked in 15 of his squad’s 25 second-quarter points as Pakitang Gilas was able to take the tempo of the game.

The stocky guard Tupas finished with 23 points to share the scoring honors with Eric Uy.

With Tupas catching fire, the Sports Scribes got half of the job done and completed the task with their suffocating man-to-man defense that completely took away Customs out of its comfort zone.

Chiqui Reyes of AKTV added 11 points for the Rey Joble-mentored Pakitang Gilas, which is also supported by San Miguel Corporation and Gatorade.

Despite missing the services of other players due to conflict of schedule, the Sports Scribes got timely contributions from their support cast of Aldo Avinante and Christian Jacinto of philstar.com, AJ Bolando of Abante, Diego dela Paz of AKTV, Josef Ramos of Manila Times, Jeric Lopez of Manila Standard and Karlo Sacamos of spin.ph.