DC cagers advance to semis

Alexander Tila of Davao City torched the hoops with 22 points against Tagum City. Koii Canarias

TAGUM CITY– In a clash of two title contenders, one has to go.

On Thursday morning, favorites Davao City and host Tagum City collided at the Rotary Park basketball court in a virtual finals preview in boys basketball of the 2019 Batang Pinoy Mindanao Finals.

Still savoring its sweet title conquest in last week’s Davao Region Athletic Association (Davraa), the team coached by multi-titled drillmasters Nestor Sorrosa and Roger Rabago came up with steadier plays in the homestretch to win on a tightrope 87-83 in the most interesting do-or-die duel in Bracket B, the tournament’s Group of Death.

Nobody was certain on whose going to prevail between the two powerhouse squads until Alexander Tila, Christian Mesias and Roldz Miguel Perez of Davao City put a period to the argument.

Tila was spectacular in a game where he let his guns ablaze with 22 points while Mesias was just as mercurial with 20. Together, these two took the fight out of the hosts.

The most important basket, however, was scored by Perez, who drilled in 12 points. His reverse lay-up with 40 seconds left in the payoff period completely shut the lights out for hard-fighting Tagum City, host of this year’s multi-sporting event organized by the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) and devoted to in-school and out-of-school athletes 15 years old and below.

As the host city bowed out from the competition, the rampaging Davao City side took flight to the semifinals against Talisayan slated at 1:00pm on Friday.

“We will try to adjust for tomorrow’s game. We committed a lot of errors and the players were completely off,” Sorrosa said in vernacular.

Sorrosa, however, believes that the team has what it takes to win the title. He said it will take proper execution of what they do in practice.

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