San Marino, Kia Motors complete semifinal cast

CEBU, Philippines - The San Marino Corned Tuna-USPF Panthers pulled another magic out of their sleeves in a 68-60 victory over the resilient Lion Tiger Katol/USJ-R Jaguars, while the Kia Motors/CIT-U Wildcats ousted the Gaisano Tisa-UC Webmasters, 100-97, to complete the semifinal cast of the 6th CESAFI Partner's Cup last Sunday night at the Cebu Coliseum.

San Marino, Lion Tiger and KIA Motors actually figured in a three-way tie with similar 2-1 win-loss records, but San Marino finished as the No.1 qualifier after obtaining the highest quotient of 1.04. Lion Tiger had 1.013 followed by Kia Motors with 1.01.

Aside from being aggressive on defense, power forward Art Camello was also active on the offensive end to topscore for San Marino with 11 points followed by Fritz Dajalos with 10.

San Marino sailed on smoothly to victory with a 60-47 advantage entering the final six-minute zone of the contest. The good thing was that San Marin kept on firing back everytime Lion Tiger converted a basket.

San Marino also held Lion Tiger's top guns Jason Olbedado and Banjo Capillar to just 11 points combined.

Abulaiz Suliman and Miguel Tabaloc paced Lion Tiger with 12 points apiece, while James Regalado scored 10 points.

Kia Motors, on the other hand, drew 20 points from Allan Dimco, who was ably backed up by Vincent Menguito and Joshua de la Cerna with 17 and 15 points, respectively.

Rookie Noel Villanueva charted 20 points but his efforts went for naught as Gaisano Capital Tisa already headed to a timely summer vacation.

The scores

First game

Kia Motors/CIT-U (100) - Dimco 20, Menguito 17, Dela cerna 15, Taboada 9, Infante 9, Taghoy 7, Batiquin 6, Pono 4, Graf 4, Brigoli 3, Baclaan 2, Rabaya 2, Sanchez 2

Gaisano Tisa-UC (97) - Villanueva 20, Tamsi 13, Wagas 12, Heruela 11, Cabahug 11, Auditor 6, Limingkit 6, Gomez 6, Mohammad 5, Cabrera 4, Cueva 3, Quintao 1

Second game

San Marino-USPF (68) - Camello 11, Dajalos 10, J. Ferraren 7, Escanilla 6, Corcilles 5, Alviva 4, Diapera 4, Sedurifa 4, Banate 4, E. Ferraren 4, Meca 4, Sollano 3, Misa 2

Lion Tiger/USJ-R (60) - Sulaiman 12,Tabaloc 12, Regalado 10, Palileo 6, Olbedado 6, Capillar 5, Medalle 2, Sanchez 2, Palatao 2, De la Rama 2, Villarosa 1. (FREEMAN)