YOUTH was served in the 3rd Philippine Ching Yuen Athletic Association (PCYAA) basketball competitions as Makati Gospel Church-New Life Christian Academy romped away with the 13-and-under Aspirants Division for a second consecutive season behind Ike Jordan Lim, one of the most prominent blue-chip players out of junior high school.
Lim powered the young New Lifers to a lily-white 9-0 finish this season, including a 2-0 sweep of second-seeded Jubilee Christian Academy in the best-of-three finals. The multi-faceted 5-foot-7 Lim, a Grade 8 stude who turned only 14 last February 11, registered a double-double of 18 points (seven of them in the fourth quarter) and 11 rebounds in MGC-NLCA’s 62-60 win in the title-series opener. He then collected 34 points – one shy of his tournament high – along with nine boards and four assists in the series-deciding 79-65 decision over the Jubileeans in Game Two. During the two-game finals, he averaged 26.0 points and 10 boards an outing.
For the second year in a row, too, Lim reached double-figure scores in every game he had played – a total of 19 appearances during the stretch.
His scoring line: 27-30-21-13-35-31-18-34. He torched third-place Grace Christian College for a tournament-high 35 points in an 84-75 success last January 31.
This campaign, Lim was one of six Aspirants Division youngsters to hit twin digits every time out, norming a league-best 26.1 points along with 8.4 boards.
In 2015, when MGC-NLCA beat Philippine Cultural College, 2-1, in the finals and finished with an 11-1 record, Lim also was only one of two players to chalk up at least 10 points in every assignment he suited up.
He averaged 21.8 points in 11 games (sitting out once due to an allergy), second only to Jubilee Christian Academy’s Kyle Nathan Barraza’s 27.1 ppg (Barraza, a Grade 9 stude who turned 15 last February 19, just completed his first year with the school’s Juniors squad).
Other Aspirants players who netted 10 points or more in every game this season are Grace Christian College’s Marcus Nathan Lu (5-9, Grade 8, turns 14 on April 7), 22.8 ppg (16-21-22-22-32-23-28-18); Philippine Cultural College’s Anson Tan, 21.3 ppg (21-28-23-11-21-24), Saint Jude Catholic School’s Andrew Choa, 20.5 ppg (19-28-15-20-24-17-21-20), MGC-NLCA’s McNeil Jason Si, 18.9 ppg (23-19-20-18-24-11-26-18-11); and Philippine Cultural College’s Art Johnson Tong, 15.7 ppg (12-14-13-23-13-21-14).
Tong and Choa each posted a triple-double once. Both accomplished the feat in a losing cause against Jubilee Christian Academy.
Watch out for the youngsters I have mentioned in this piece. They could well turn into household names and even ring a bell in the Philippine basketball landscape in the near future.