Baby Lancers fall short in PBA Coca-Cola Nationals after getting beaten by San Beda

The title aspirations of the University of the Visayas Baby Lancers got buried by the great play of the Taytay representatives San Beda Red Cubs.

Taytay took the national crown after beating Cebu, 66-83, in the National Finals of the 2012 PBA Coca-Cola Youngstars tournament at the Smart-Araneta Coliseum yesterday.

After winning by a scant margin in their initial encounter in the elimination round, the Red Cubs made sure that there would be no doubts to their dominance as they got much production from John Ryan Gumtang, Franz Abuda, son of ex-PBA player Freddie Abuda, Norrish Decapia and Mark Joper Diputado, the younger brother of former Sacred Heart School-Ateneo de Cebu standout and now San Beda juniors varsity member Adven Jess Diputado.

The first meeting saw Taytay lose a 20-point lead and needed some clutch defense in the end to come away with an 86-81 win over Cebu. This time around, they applied the pressure all throughout.

On the way to the championship game, Taytay routed Caloocan Selection, its fellow National Capital Region qualifier, 108-75, Mindanao’s Holy Child School of Davao, 106-70, Southern Luzon’s District I-Laguna, 103-64, and Holy Angel University-Pampanga, 82-63.

Gumtang was named Most Valuable Player and joined Bobby Francisco of Caloocan, Joel Luna of Pampanga, Leonard Santillan of UV, and Niño Ybanez of Davao in the Mythical Team