Pepsi, Napico, Al Tayar clinch title series openers

Jeddah’s slam dunk champion and prolific scorer Mursi Akad scored a career high 40 points to help Pepsi Cola draw first blood in the Inter-Commercial Division (Non-rated) best-of-three finals against rival Samco with a 102-101 victory at the weekend in the 2013 Perfetto Basketball Tournament organized by Industrial Sports Association (ISA) at Industrial City Dawa Office (ICDO) court in Industrial City Phase I on the outskirts of Jeddah.
Napico likewise won the opener of the Inter-Company Bonafide championship series against Woodrock 81-75. To complete the championship weekend Al Tayar Starplast defeated Technoglass 75-68 at the start of their own title series.
The best player of the game Akad had a tremendous shooting with 13 first quarter points for Pepsi and two teammates combined for 14 while Samco had six players, led by Joseph Ubalde, who had 9 points, scoring in a balanced offense, as the first period ended 29-all.
Boyet Bautista led Samco in the second canto but more players helped out on offense for Pepsi to finish the half in front at 60-51 with Akad and Gino Cilot hitting a combined 15 points to lead the way. Cilot finished with 23 points while Christian Guimpatan tallied 13 points for Pepsi.
The next two quarters were more intense as Reyes and Bautista waxed hot from beyond the arc scoring 23 points between them with less than a minute to play. The coaching staff led by Perez, Mateo and Bhoy Leyesa along with the captain ball Allan Zorilla of Pepsi never backed down and instead fought back, executing plays to the letter and coming up with a crucial basket to escape with the Game 1 win.
Abril Mabarit, awarded once again as the best player of the game, led Napico with a game-high 32 points including 13 in the fourth quarter.
Mabarit received support from their 1-2 punch guards Caoile and Rarama who combined for 29 points. Badajos, Labuca and Oberes battled hard for Woodrock but fell short in the final period.
The reigning MVP Sandoval and the new kid in town Abulencia known as “Tora Tora” each had a monster game. Sandoval scored 22 points while Abulencia had 31 points to be named best player of the game to help Tayar steal Game 1 from the taller Technoglass squad.
— With input from Janus Napuecas gella
The scores:
Napico (81) Mabarit 32, Rarama 20, Caoile 9, Baloloy 6, Santos 5, Casillano 3, Turai 3, Tolete 3
Woodrock (75) Badajos 19, Labuca 17, Oberes 14, Bolo 10, Canlas 5, Bentulan 4, Racaza 3, Korog 3,
AlTayar (75) Abulencia 31, Sandoval 22, Alvarado 6, Mamayog 4, Nicolas 4, Carino 4, Garcia 2, Dianggal 2
Technoglass (68) Fuentes 25, Agustin 17, Reyes 11, Angeles 6, Habla 5, Valledor 4, Sapitan 1