Esdrelon, Borja earn individual honors

The awards keep pouring in for HANMI Cup champion Fiesta-Grand Hotel as Elmer Esdrelon and Richard Borja added two more trophies in their already packed trophy room.

Esdrelon was named the finals most valuable player while Borja earned the nod as the Coach of the Year in the 2nd Annual HANMI Cup Inter-Hotel Basketball League in Sunday night’s award ceremony at the Gilbert C. Ada Gymnasium.

Esdrelon, who is also part of the mythical selection, scored 24 points with 14 coming in the fourth quarter to back up Ryan Sanciangco’s game-long brilliance.

Teammate Sanciangco, Aqua Resort Club’s Darwin Barbo, Saipan World Resort’s Dennis Vinas, and Hafadai Beach Hotel’s Peter Iguel are the other members of the mythical team.

Esdrelon also collected three more individual awards one of which was having the best shooting hands from downtown, as he drilled in a total of 41 3-pointers out of 67 attempts for a 61.2 percent shooting.

Esdrelon proved to be a steady free throw shooter with a 76 percent clip, or making 35 of his 46 attempts at the charity line. He also had the most assists this season, tallying 59 in the 12 games he played for a 4.91 per outing average.

Borja earned the Coach of the Year award for steering Fiesta-Grand to the pennant with a league-best 11-1 record and capping the season with an 87-72 title win over Pacific Islands Club in the do-or-die championship last Sunday.

Fiesta-Grand, under Borja’s leadership on the sidelines, won nine straight regular season games after suffering a 86-102 thrashing from Hyatt Regency Saipan on Dec. 9.

Fiesta-Grand ended the regular season with a hard-earned 98-92 triumph over PIC on March 16 to enter the playoffs as the top-seeded squad. They continued their finals bid with a thrilling 118-116 decision against Hyatt Regency last March 30 and ended the season with a finals win over PIC to nail their 12th straight win.

Sanciangco earned the scoring title after scoring a total of 341 points or a per game average of 28.4. He even scored a season-high 41 points in Fiesta-Grand’s 118-116 win over Hyatt in the playoffs.

PIC’s Derrick Tudela earned the most rebounds this season with a total of 102 or a 9.2 per game average, while Vinas was the King of Swipe with a total of 37 steals and 3.4 average. Edmark Mendoza was the league’s Sultan of Swat with a total of 12 blocked shots or 1.6 per outing.