Mr. Double Seven

NOT once but twice have I been a “live” witness to an explosive scoring performance by an individual player in a basketball game.

I was there at the Jacinto Tiu Court in the Xavier School campus on the night of January 5, 2011 when a junior high schooler by the name of Jeron Teng scorched the nets for an eye-popping 104 points in the Golden Stallions’ masterful 164-74 victory over Grace Christian College in the 41st Metro Manila Tiong Lian Basketball Association competitions.

Xavier School subsequently snared the MMTLBA championship for a record-setting fourth year but the league itself would fold up three years later (2014) due to various policy issues.

A hoops junkie that I have been for the past five decades, here I was again at the Angelicum College gym along Santo Domingo, Quezon City last Sunday (June 26) to watch the school’s alumni basketball tournament in the Juniors Division. (Alumni parents and employees of AC also joined the action in the Seniors Division)

Angelicum has been a favorite destination of mine because my two grown-up children Matthew Lester (Batch 2003) and Marianne Kimberly (Batch 2006) spent their primary, intermediate and secondary schooling there for more than a decade.

And on this historic day at the AC gym, Matthew would be playing with his Batch 2003 team against the tournament-leading Batch 2005 squad that featured a former professional player.

It was a gloomy Sunday morning as rains started to pour in outside the gym.

Call it a premonition or not, I felt something’s gonna happen special that day and it really started happening when “threes” also rained on the floor in a high-noon shootout between Jeric Torres (Batch 2003) and three-year (2011-14) Philippine Basketball Association veteran Eric Carlo Salamat, the former 5-foot-11 Roebuck who went on to suit up for the NCAA’s San Sebastian Staglets and UAAP’s Ateneo Blue Eagles, collecting title rings along the way, before launching a professional career.

Batch 2005 secured a 103-98 victory behind Salamat’s eight treys and 41 points and team skipper/coach Ryan Solis’ pair of clutch threes from beyond the arc.

In the end, however, it was the 30-year-old Torres who made history with his ballistic Double Seven performance. The 5-foot-10 frontliner shot the lights out of the Angelicum College gym with a mind-boggling 77 points that were spiked by drives, layups, putbacks and three-pointers aside from plucking down 12 rebounds in 38 minutes of service.

Shooting with rapid-like Play Station efficiency, the well-conditioned, bull-strong Torres went 24-for-39 from the field, including 6-for-10 from three-point territory, and was 11-for-14 from the foul line (making his first 10 free throws) to eclipse the previous individual high of 51 points he himself set last June 19 in a 101-76 victory over Batch 2001.

Torres, a culinary expert who owns a Persian restaurant Project Kebab along J.P. Rizal Street in Project 4, Quezon City, also has had games of 41 and 45 points in nine appearances so far.

Torres scored Batch 2003’s first 19 points before German-Filipino center Sigmund Gastrock broke through with split free throws. He finished with 23 markers after the first 10-minute quarter as a gritty seven-man Batch 2003 contingent grabbed a 25-16 advantage.

The lead of Batch 2003 ballooned to 17 points, 35-18, before Batch 2005 came within nine, 50-41, at halftime. By then, Torres had already compiled 42 points – one more than the entire output of the opposing side.

Torres was “limited” to 15 scores in the third frame as Batch 2005 took the upperhand, 73-72, for the first time since the early minutes. Up 76-72 after three quarters, Batch 2005 never trailed thereafter. Torres tallied 20 points in the final quarter but Batch 2003 came no closer than four points, 93-89, as the left-handed Salamat showcased his own offensive prowess.

My son Matthew scored the game’s final four points on a pair of layups to finalize the score.

Torres is pacing the entire tournament in scoring with a stunning 42.3-point average.

Batch 2003 has one assignment remaining – July 10 vs. playoffs-bound Batch 2006.

Other Batch 2003 players who saw action in the history-making game were Ted Michael Cruz, Melvin Espinosa, Harlan Guansing, and Raymond Agustin.

Will Torres go for a 100 against my 26-year daughter Kim’s Batch 2006 on July 10? Show up at the Angelicum gym and like LeBron James, be a “Witness.”