Xavier bounces back, beats St. Stephens
Henry Liao ’72, YEHEY! Contributors
1/18/2007 7:16:39 AM
Xavier School, after a slow start that saw the Golden Stallions trail by six points (7-1) in the early minutes, easily defeated St. Stephen’s High School, 63-50, in the main game of a Jan. 17 doubleheader in the Tiong Lian basketball tournament at the Chiang Kai Shek gym in Manila.
In the first game, Grace Christian High School, which dropped all of its seven games a year ago, upset the 2006 third-placer Uno High School, 66-62, in the season opener for both teams. This foul-plagued game took 2 hours and 10 minutes to complete as both schools combined to attempt 105 free throws. Grace was 18-for-47 from the foul line while Uno was 33-for-58 from the same are.
Xavier, which picked up its first victory in two starts, banked on the heroics of Gabriel Banal, former PBA coach Joel Banal’s son who registered 15 points, 10 rebounds, two blocked shots and an assist to earn Player of the Game honors.
St. Stephen’s had an 8-0 run bridging the first and second quarters to go ahead, 17-18. However, Xavier regained the lead on a pair of free throws by Banal and the Stallions never trailed thereafter.
Rookie mentor Lito Vergara’s charges owned a 31-25 advantage at halftime and in a show of balanced scoring, 10 players scored at least a point, led by Banal’s eight.
Xavier grabbed its first twin-digit advantage at 42-32, and owned a 46-40 edge going into the final 10-minute quarter.
The Stallions scored the first eight points of the fourth period as part of a 10-0 blast to move ahead, 54-40, and virtually settle the issue. Xavier thrice led by 16 points, 57-41, 59-43 and 62-46.
Only one Xaverian other than Banal scored in double figures – 10 by Jan Umali. Skipper Justinn Sze had seven markers and Robin Tan knocked in six. Ronald Chua, Paulo Pe and Jasper Pua each had five.
Unlike its 69-62 season-opening loss to Chiang Kai Shek wherein it shot an atrocious 16-for-42 from the foul line, Xavier made 22 of its 41 free throws against St. Stephen’s. Banal took 14 trips to the charity stripes and nailed down nine of them.
Xavier next plays Grace Christian (1-0) on Saturday, Jan. 20 (7 p.m.). On Wednesday, Jan. 24, the Stallions will take on Uno (5:30 p.m.).
The bad news: You better believe this item – only 40 supporters were around to watch Xavier’s game against St. Stephen’s and probably 10 were Joel Banal’s guests. And that was not the worst part of the story. We only had one cheerleader to perform at halftime and I later found out he might not even be from Xavier. A hired guy he apparently was; he was not wearing the Gold and Blue. At least, we made full use of him as the imposter also beat the drums for us. Guys, Xavier showed up with a cheering squad only on opening day.
The Stallions need the cheering squad back and hope to get more support from the Xavier community in their succeeding games as we are in for rough sailing this season.
