MJD leads CES in rained-out match

MJD Enterprise’s Randy Mungcal pulls up for a jumper against CES Electronics’ Dante Tabora during their regular season game in the masters division of the San Antonio caging last month at the San Antonio court. (Roselyn B. Monroyo)

Top-ranked MJD Enterprise is ahead in its rained-out playoff match against CES Electronics, 27-23, in the masters division of the 2015 San Antonio Community Action Network Basketball League last Thursday night at the San Antonio court.

The game will resume next week as the league will take a break beginning this Wednesday to give way to the holiday season. MJD will have the possession with still 8:49 left in the second quarter.

MJD once held a 24-15 advantage at the start of the second frame before CES Electronics outgunned the former 8-2, in the opening minutes of that period. Henry De Jesus sparked the short rally, knocking in back-to-back triples, while Bert Dacumos scored the 2 other points. Jun Alipio nailed MJD’s lone field goal so far in the second canto.

Alipio earlier tallied 6 points, while Randy Mungcal registered 7 to give MJD a good start. Five other MJD players hit the board in the opening canto to give their team a 9-point cushion, while only Ariel Abadilla made more than one field goal for CES in the first frame. He had 6 points, while Olan Tengco, Dick Tibayan, Ferdie Tobias, and Sonny Ebuen contributed 2 points each.

CES was paired against the No. 1 seed MJD after finishing the regular season at eighth place with its 1-7 record. MJD is unbeaten in the round-robin regular season and is highly favored to advance to the semifinals along with three other squads that joined them at the Top 4—Blue Haus (7-1), Armatech (5-3), and GMJ/IKKI (5-3).

Blue Haus will be challenging VM Production (2-6), while Armatech and GMJ/IKKI will be facing KB Market (4-4) and Erika’s Catering Ferrera Builders (4-4), respectively.

Meanwhile, since the MJD-CES playoff tiff was rained-out, league organizers were also forced to reset the semis tiff between Maplas and Islander in the Open division. The new schedule will be announced later and the winner of the last Final Four pairing will duel MJD Enterprise for the east division crown. MJD was the early finalist after eliminating Ask Y U B a couple of weeks ago, while Maplas sneaked into the semis after pulling off an upset against the Sonics. Islander eased past Triple J to march into the Final Four.

In the west division, there are still four teams left. GMJ/IKKI and PIC played in the first semis match last Tuesday, but their game was also rained-out early in the third period with the opposing squads in a deadlock, 36-all. In the other semis pairing, it will be Cholos 8th Division versus Blue Haus, which knocked out Ferrera Builders and Armatech, respectively.