Baby Panthers make history
Advance to finals for first time in CESAFI caging
For the first time, the University of Southern Philippines Foundation (USPF) Baby Panthers advanced to the finals in a Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation, Inc. (CESAFI) basketball tournament.
In a breakthrough performance, the Organique California-backedBabyPanthers smothered the Casino ActiveUniversity of San Jose-Recoletos (USJ-R) Baby Jaguars, 75-67, to barge into the championship in the juniors division of the 2018 CESAFI Partner's Cup last night at the Cebu Coliseum.
"The hard work of my players really paid off. They are very much disciplined this time," said USPF athletic director and Panthers Basketball team manager Brian Jereza.
With the way things are going on for the Baby Panthers whoarealreadyensuredofafinals berth with a 5-1 win-loss record, they certainly earned a certain measureofrespectfromtheirrivals.
"We did not expect this. It's truly a blessing for us knowing that we have always been known as'whipping boys' in the league," added Jereza.
The Baby Panthers were in full command of the match after cruising to a 15-point lead, 43-28, late in the second quarter.
The Baby Jaguars battled back with savvy and came threateningly close at 56-60 but that proved to be their last gasp of breath as Rojan Montemayor and Neon Chavez launched a blitzkrieg 10-1 attack to virtually put the win in USPF's pocket, 7057, with only 1:48 left to play.
Montemayor topscored with 19 points, while Chavez nailed 14 markers for the Baby Panthers, who will face the winner of this Thursday's knockout duel between the University of the Visayas (UV) Baby Lancers and Hotel Fortuna-UniversityofCebu(UC) Junior Webmasters in the bestof-three title series starting on Sunday.