Game today:
Cebu Coliseum
5:30 p.m. – UV vs. SWU
The University of the Visayas (UV) Green Lancers will try to complete their long and arduous climb back to the top as they gun for the championship when they face the Southwestern University (SWU) Cobras in Game Four of the best-of-five finals series of the 12th Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation Inc. men’s basketball tournament at the Cebu Coliseum.
The Lancers have a 2-1 lead going into today’s game.
UV won the league’s first nine titles before its reign was disrupted by June Mar Fajardo and the rest of the University of Cebu Webmasters in 2010 and 2011.
The Lancers took the pivotal series lead after their 69-65 win in Game Three.
Team manager Gerald Anthony “Samsam”Gullas, though, remains wary of the prospect of a do-or-die Game Five, a scenario that he hopes to avoid by finishing it all today. “Hopefully, we can end it now,” he said. “We will do everything we can to do that. Kay kung mag-Game Five pa, it would be very dangerous since the momentum would be on their side.”said
As with all the other games in this much-watched series, Game Three was another classic with UV dodging a bullet in the waning seconds to hack out the victory.
The Lancers led by three, 68-65, when Steve Akomo was slapped with both a personal foul and a technical foul, giving SWU the chance to take the lead with four freethrows and possession afterwards.
But SWU choked big-time with Junrey Ortuyo and Justin Aboude bricking their freethrow attempts. The Cobras also came up short on their game-tying attempt from three.
WIN OR GO HOME
SWU head coach Raul “Yayoy” Alcoseba, summed up the team’s battlecry for today in a simple text message: “It’s win or go home.”
Cobras team manager Ryan Aznar also recited their recipe for success if they were to have any hope of extending the series. “They really must have the heart and the composure. They must have it, the will to win,”Aznar said.