Earns outright semis slot

Games today (Cebu Coliseum)

5 p.m. – Lion Tiger vs. Gaisano Tisa

6:45 p.m. – San Marino vs. Kia Motors

What used to be the marquee match-up in the Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation Inc. (CESAFI) has now become a one-sided affair after the Prime Asia-University of the Visayas walloped the Gaisano Capital-University of Cebu, 109-74, last Tuesday to book an outright slot in the semifinals at the close of the elimination round of the 2012 Partner’s Cup at the Cebu Coliseum.

These two teams battled for several years for the crown in the Cesafi with the Webmasters winning once in 2010, which snapped UV’s decade-long dominance of the league. However, with UC’s behemoth June Mar Fajardo now campaigning in the big leagues, the Webmasters have become mere shadows of their former selves.

The Lancers on the other hand, have kept chugging along and remains as one of the elite teams in the league and they showed the Webmasters how it’s done, dominating their opponents from the opening tip until the final buzzer. They led, 56-32 at halftime and cruised to their seventh win in eight games for an automatic slot in the Final Four by virtue of them finishing atop the standings.

Gaisano finished the round with a 2-6 mark and will do battle in the quarterfinals which kicks off today. They will face the second-ranked Lion Tiger Aerosol-University of San Jose-Recoletos in the round which will be a single round-robin affair.

The other game today will pit the San Marino Corned Tuna-University of Southern Philippines Foundation Panthers against the Kia Motors-Cebu Institute of Technology-University Wildcats.

The team with the lowest record at the end of the quarterfinals will be ousted from the competition.

Crafty point guard, John Abad led the onslaught by Prime Asia with 18 points while Chris Perolino added 16. Phil Mercader chipped in 14 markers.