Capricciosa blasts Country House

Capricciosa used its quickness and superior bench to outplay and outhustle Country House 97-79 yesterday morning in the 2004 Inter-Restaurant Basketball League at the Gilbert C. Ada Gymnasium.

Country House, however, didn’t make it easy for the pizza and pasta restaurant—especially in the first half.

Banjo Basila essentially had everything he threw up hit the bottom of the net en route to scoring 15 points, as Country House opened up a 23-17 advantage after the first quarter.

Basila somewhat cooled down after hitting three triples in the first 10 minutes of the ballgame but the rest of his teammates picked up were he left off.

It was a 36-26 count in favor of Country House following a short jumper by Joy Dayrit and it seemed Capricciosa was far from recovering from its sluggish start.

But as quickly as the weather changes on Saipan these days, Capricciosa players suddenly tightened their defenses, moved the ball on offense, and generally made sound judgments on the floor.

The result was 16-2 run to close the half that gave the Jojo Molar-coached squad a 42-38 lead at the turn.

Both teams tried their best shots at each other at the start of the third quarter with Basila rediscovering his touch from the arc and Capricciosa’s Ed Arriola getting away with murder in the fastbreak.

It was 59-51 for Capricciosa following consecutive buckets by Randy Arconado and former national player Gyles Ruluked with three minutes left in the quarter.

After Country House strung together three straight points, Capricciosa answered with a 5-0 run of its own to peg the count at 64-54 with less than a minute to go in the quarter.

Capricciosa eventually entered the fourth and final period with a 10-point edge, 66-56.

Then things began to really get going for Capricciosa in the payoff period.

Arriola began the fireworks by scoring the first 5 points of the canto then found Badong Camacho for an uncontested layup that ballooned Capricciosa’s lead to 17-points, 75-58.

Country House sued for time and manufactured 4 points out of the time out. But Capricciosa was far from done and rebuilt their lead to 21 points, 83-62, following Randy Arconado’s assist to Camacho with time down 4:32.

Edward Vega tried his best to rally Country House back in the ballgame by firing 13 points in the final minutes but it was too little, too late as Capricciosa steamrolled to victory.

Arriola led five Capricciosa players in double figures with 27 points. Arconado and center Andy Viola also came up with double-double performances.

Basila and Vega paced Country House’s losing cause with 37 and 20 points, respectively.

In the 3-point competition during halftime, Arconado made it two for two for Capricciosa by defeating Basila, 5-2.

The IRBL resumes this evening with the match between pacesetter Angel Wings and winless LSG Sky Chefs.

Capricciosa 97 – Arriola 27, Arconado 19, Camacho 16, Ruluked 15, Viola 10, Mangahis 4, Roman 4, Suda 2.

Country House 79 – Basila 37, E. Vega 20, Dayrit 13, Bautista 4, Villanueva 2.

Scoring by quarters: 17-23, 42-38, 66-56, 97-79.

Referees: Arnold Mesa and Marvin De Belen.