Acster Marketing’s Medo Tosh Sesay and Richard Albo drops 24 and 17 points to capture the inaugural title of the 1st United Negros Basketball League (UNBL) Open Tournament 2022 at the Po Hang Gym of Tay Tung High School in Bacolod City last Sunday, December 4.
In the opening quarter, Acster Marketing draw first blood with 9 pts straight before RA-AK reacted to level the game at 22-all. Acster responded a 10-0 run to lead the first half with 37-28.
But RA-AK sliced the deficit anew in the third quarter with a 6-0 run sparked by Mark Yee’s triple as they draw closer at 37-34. Acster benefitted from a timely timeout to engineer a 7-0 run by Richard Albo to keep RA-AK at bay, 55-48.
Acster made another run at 8-0 to start the last quarter, while RA-AK struggled in the perimeter and unforced turnovers hounded the team as the lead ballooned to 20 pts under 4 minutes remaining.
After seeing everything, RA-AK waved the white flag as they slowly empty their bench in the dying minutes of regulation.
The losing effort of RA-AK was spearheaded by Emmanuel Ojoula with 12 markers and Jhan Nermal delivered 10.
On the battle for third place, Supreme ABF/SilverGraces won an emphatic victory against Tea Tas/Puff Boss with a final score of 133-85.
Acster’s Aldwin Alday copped the MVP Award and pocketed a P10,000 cash prize courtesy of RIGPOINT-PETROGAZZ CSAV Titans. Joining Alday in the Mythical 5 selection were Sesay, Yee, RA-AK’s Renz Solomon, and SilverGraces’ Landy Sanjo.
For UNBL president Jun Ballesteros, the basketball tournament was undoubtedly successfull and will strive to improve the next succeeding seasons. “Although the tournament was undoubtedly a success the UNBL will strive to improve in our succeeding tournament. Furthermore, thank you to all the basketball fans who came out to support the UNBL and this tournament,” Ballesteros said.*
