MMSU WHOPPERS wore down the underdog DMMSU basketball club in a pulsating finish of a grueling duel, hacking out a 70-56 victory in the breathtaking nerve-buzzling men’s basketball game crowd during the SCUAA-I Meet elimination round at the MMSU basketball court, yesterday.

MMSU drew strength from the pair of skipper Justine Tarona, shooting guard, and veteran Anthony Mata, forward, with the former firing 22 points and the latter dishing out a double-double performance of 12 points and 13 monstrous rebounds.

Playmaker Walden Florida held the whoppers in command majority of the contest while the high-leaping John Paul Lulu backed him up with his superb athleticism and impressive all-around game. Lulu highlighted five block shots and three assists.

Powerhouse MMSU whoppers routed the cagers right from the start of the opening tip off as they displayed spectacular as versatile Tarona and the rest of the squad unleashed their sporadic long-range jumpers, indefensible lay-ups, destructive shots from beyond the arc and superb undergoal stabs to give them the huge advantage, 25-6.

In the second quarter, point guard Von Ryan Florida and Mata nailed two consecutive shots from rainbow territory accompanied with the short-range jumpers of Tarona to totally dwarf the cagers and protect their lead, 40-23.

At the start of the second half, Jerome Baga, whoppers’ forward, came off-the-bench and rendered three successive daredevil plays suspending in mid-air and converting three indefensible acrobatic lay-ups to contribute and extend their lead to 23 points. Engulfed with bitterness to get back into the ballgame and win, Jayson Andal, center-forward, and the rest of the DMMSU cagers fought back and executed well their plays to seize the lead, 60-41.

Determined DMMSU cagers fused their strengths and carried their hustle and momentum in the last and final quarter passing the ball well and converting hair-raising shots and pure muscle in the shaded lane to initiate a 10-0 blitz. But crowd favorite MMSU whoppers held the spectators at the edge of their seats as their tremendous and unmatchable ace player, Steve Gonzales, poured his swift pivots, sharp semi-hooks and destructive tear drop to totally wrap the ballgame and humble the DMMSU cagers, 70-56 in the final count.

\"I am proud of my boys because they really played like a true champion but still we have a lot of things to polish, they had miscues and mistakes but hopefully we will overcome those in our next game,\" MMSU head coach Maynard Rivera stressed.