Tero, Lee, ref sacked for brawl in Premier tilt

MANILA, Philippines - The Filoil Flying V Premier Cup suspended La Salle’s Ramil Tero and Marvin Lee of UST for their involvement in the bench-clearing brawl that marred their elimination round game at the Filoil Flying V Center Sunday night.

League commissioner Ato Badolato also slapped an indefinite suspension on referee Jong Banayat for failing to control the La Salle-UST match, which the Archers won, 109-81.

“He’s suspended indefinitely,” said Badolato of Banayat.

Tero was suspended for two games while Lee drew a one-game ban for their fistfight that led to a bench-clearing incident.

“Because he instigated the fight, Tero is suspended for two games,” Badolato told The STAR.

La Salle’s Ricci Rivero, Gabe Capacio and Santi Santillan and UST’s Carlos Escalambre, Christian Garcia, Jordan Sta. Ana, Jeepy Faundo, Zach Huang and Wendell de Guzman, who were tossed out for joining the melee, escaped suspension.

“Based on FIBA rules, suspensions cover players who were ejected for fighting, not for bench-clearing,” said Badolato.

The fracas, which broke out with 20 seconds to go and La Salle leading by a wide margin, could have been prevented had game officials managed to control the highly emotional duel.

Tero will sit out La Salle’s next game against Group A co-leader Lyceum of the Phl U (3-0) on Friday and reigning NCAA titlist San Beda on May 28 while Lee will be out when UST faces Perpetual Help (0-1) on Friday.

The win was La Salle’s second in three games while UST fell to 0-3.