CEBUANO guard Jerie Marlon Pingoy came up big once again as he towed the reigning UAAP juniors champions Far Eastern University-Diliman to an 81-77 win over Chiang Kai Shek School in the opening playdate of the Philippine Secondary Schools Basketball Championship yesterday at the Arena in San Juan City.
Pingoy, a former ace of the University of Cebu before he transferred to FEU and went on to win back-to-back UAAP MVP awards, scored 22 points in the tournament pitting the best high school basketball teams in Manila.
In other results, NCAA juniors champions San Beda Red Cubs got past Hope Christian High School, 95-91, behind the 21 points and 11 rebounds of big man Arvin Tolentino.
University of Santo Tomas also logged a 72-63 win over UAAP runners-up, National University as Alvin Baetiong got 19 points and 15 rebounds.
The teams competing in the PSSBC are the UAAP and NCAA Final 4 qualifiers and the top four finishers of the Metro Manila Tiong Lian Basketball Association. The champion team will receive a cash prize of P30,000 while the runner-up goes home with P20,000. The third placer will get P10,000.
The 11 teams will be split into two groups playing a single round-robin with the top four finishers advancing to the knockout quarterfinals. The winners move on to play in the winner-take-all semifinals, where losers go for third place and winners battle for the title. /Correspondent Jonas Panerio