Luzon giants fall as WV, Davao force Palaro basketball final

Category : Sports | Sub Category : Basketball Posted on 2025-05-30 03:38:50

PNA

MANILA – The three teams expected to reign supreme in the Palarong Pambansa secondary boys' basketball event fell one by one at the Centennial Arena in Laoag City, Ilocos Norte on Thursday.

Defending champion National University-Nazareth School, representing the National Capital Region, was the first to crash out after succumbing to St. Robert's International College of Western Visayas, 67-76, in the quarterfinal during the daytime session.

Kissing its back-to-back title hopes in the Palarong Pambansa goodbye, it was the third time the Bullpups fell short of a championship within three months after also losing the University Athletic Association of the Philippines high school boys championship to the University of Santo Tomas Tiger Cubs and to eventual winner Fil-Am Nation Select in the semifinals of the National Basketball Training Center National Finals.

St. Robert's eventually continued its giant slaying in the semifinals later in the night after dropping Calabarzon, 80-73.

Calabarzon, led by a good mix of players from National Collegiate Athletic Association teams San Beda-Rizal and Lyceum-Cavite, had a solid first half behind the hot hands of Andrei Ugaddan, but the Iloilo City-based ballers, led by Elijah Rose, took over in the second half to score another huge upset.

St. Robert's will face Ateneo de Davao University (ADDU), representing Davao Region, in the gold medal game Friday.

ADDU pulled off a shocker of its own after stunning the Pampanga Delta program-backed Central Luzon, 66-65, in the other semifinal duel.

ADDU climbed back from 11 points down with a little over eight minutes left and held on after Pampanga, which lost Chog Moral due to cramps with 40.5 seconds to go, turned the ball over with 1.9 seconds left.