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| New leg. New Champion. Welcome to the club, Phenom Basilan Steel CTC Construction |
The third time is the charm, they said.
Phenom Basilan Steel CTC Construction claimed the third leg of the Chooks-to-Go Pilipinas 3x3 Patriots' Cup presented by Coca-Cola on Saturday afternoon at the SM Center Muntinlupa.
Fresh from their maiden appearance in the FIBA 3x3 World Tour at the Haining Challenger last week, the Steel finally won the big one after falling short in the final in the previous two legs, defeating the other team that went to China with them, Wilkins Balanga Pure, 21-16 with 96 seconds remaining.
Franky Johnson shares, "We deserve this." He adds, "We did this for the whole province of Basilan. That's our goal, to redefine Basilan."
The Steel lost to Gold's Gym Pasig, 21-15 in the first leg and followed that with a heart-breaking 21-20 defeat to VetHealth-Delhi in the second leg.
It was a nip-and-tuck battle against Balanga to cap off the day, featuring four deadlocks. Marcus Hammonds then produced an and-1 that broke a 13-all tie, that was then followed by a Troy Rike basket.
Alvin Pasaol and Johnson exchanged two's, but Pasaol would miss a couple of free throws and then Rike would extend the Steel's lead to four with 110 seconds to go.
A quick layup from Karl Dehesa would reduce the lead to three with 104 seconds remaining, but Johnson sealed the deal with a deuce eight seconds later.
Johnson finished with nine points, while Hammonds added seven. Rike would finish with four markers.
Travis Franklin led Balanga in scoring with six points in the final, with this leg being his debut in Chooks Pilipinas 3x3 after being the resident reinforcement for their World Tour stints.
Aside from the PhP 100,000 for winning the leg, Basilan now moves atop the leaderboard for the Patriot's Cup with 260 points, while Balanga moves up to third with 210. This is of course pending the number of points Pasig will receive for their eighth place finish at the Poitiers Challenger.
On the way to securing the title, Basilan managed to gain some revenge by defeating second leg champions VetHealth-Delhi, 22-20.
Rike clinched the win with a two with 23.7 seconds remaining, ending their semifinal with eight points. He shared to the media later, "Tough. Really tough for us. I think we didn't really know until yesterday that Roosevelt [Adams] wasn't really playing for sure. We had to come together, and we knew that we were missing some three-point shooting so I knew that going in."
Adams sat out the leg with a hamstring issue and was replaced by Gab Dagangon.
The semifinal stint keeps the 3x3BL squad in second place with 230 points.
Balanga secured their first final in the Patriot's Cup by defeating Max4-Birada Cebu, 21-18 in the other semifinal. The Cebuanos took advantage of Pasig's absence by nabbing the semifinal berth.
The Coca-Cola side events remained status quo, as both David Carlos and Kiran Shastri topped the slam dunk and shootout for the third straight leg. Carlos had a busy day as he also played for guest team Gold's Gym Muntinlupa that day. Muntinlupa filled in for Pasig with their 3x3 World Tour commitment.
The Patriots Cup now heads to SM Megamall for the fourth leg this coming July 13 at the Events Center.
The Scores:
Basilan 21 - Johnson 9, Hammonds 7, Rike 4.
Balanga 16 - Franklin 6, Dehesa 5, Pasaol 4, De Chavez 1.
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