For the second time in less than a week, AACI Transport prevailed over AACI Farms, 81-74, in the second round of the Class A competition of the Fil-Sino All Asian Countertrade 3rd Conference Inter-Color Basketball Tournament at the Bacolod Tay Tung High School Po Hang Gym.
AACI Transport posts a comfortable 62-43 lead at the break as Kenderson Hao delivered nine points and Richard Co, Bol Manaloto, Johann Villanueva and Matthew Yap adding eight points each, to negate the Farms’ offensive coming from the 16 points of Julius Teruel.
The Trio of Johnnyson Yu, Nico Lopingco and Ren Ren Lacson rallied Farms in the third canto to cut the deficit to 78-70.
A third quarter Farms’ rally, highlighted by a triple from Lopingco, cut the lead to 83-80, but timely hits by Rey Pandoro and Manaloto stymied the comeback to give Transport its fourth win in five games while Farms absorbed its third loss in five outings.
Transport was led by Manaloto with 17 points, backstopped by Mark Binguan and Kenderson Hao with 11, and Peter Paul Ortaliz with 8 points.
Teruel had a game-high 20 points in a losing effort, Militante added 18, Lopingco and Victor Go Jr. with 12 points each, Lacson had 9 points and Yu with 7 points.
In Class B action, JSY Countertrade led from start to finish to hold back JSY Transport, 69-59.
Countertrade opened the game with a 10-0 run and finish the quarter with a 23-7 advantage led by Archie Co and Biboy Yap with 8 points each.
Breaking away for several uncontested layups, Luigi Coo delivered 11 points, while teammate Jerky Ong’s shaded area offense earned him six points points to lead JSY Transport comeback as they almost caught up with Countertrade at 32-28 at the break.
Countertrade blanked Transport for four minutes to establish a double digit lead before Papang Oxinio scored six straight points for Transport to bring the lead back to single digit.
But Countertrade capitalized on several Transport turnovers to restore the lead back to 49-37 going to the fourth quarter, with seven players scoring for the team led Lexter Ang, who also controlled the interior defense for Countertrade.
Luigi Coo scored eight points in the final period, but Countertrade answered with the scrappy plays of Co, Yap and Ryan Tumbagahan, plus the interior defense of Udoy Buncio and Ang to stop short the Transport comeback.
Yap and Co had 17 points each, Tumbagahan added 14, Daniel Lo picked up 9 points.
In a separate encounter, Basecom surprisingly battered undefeated top seed Organic Solutions, 89-59, to share the No. 1 spot at 3-1.
Organic took the first quarter 18-16, but Basecom’s offense went into high gear in the next three quarters as they outscored Organic 27-15, 19-16 and 27-10.
Edward Uy paced the balanced Basecom offensive with 22 points, Clarence Quingco scored 18, Keith Banzon shot 13, Jeremy Coo made 11, Jan Jan Young and Dan Gustilo contributed 7, and Biboy Uysang with 5 points.
Organic was led by Allen Uy with 15 points, Arvin Chua produced 14, Alex Chua contributed 10, Jason Ong had 8 points, and Rey Jara with 6 points.
Games resume tomorrow with AACI Transport going up against Royal Star Trading at 7 p.m. followed by the encounter between JSY Transport V and Organic Solutions.*with a report from Stephen Tan