GET ready for the opening of Season 7 of the PCYAA on Saturday, October 19, with the start of the basketball festivities in the Developmental 12-Under and Aspirants 14-Under divisions at the tradition-steeped Uno High School gym.
Six games – three in each division – are on tap for inaugural day.
In the Developmental division, two-time defending champion St. Stephen’s High School takes on 2018 third-placer Jubilee Christian Academy at 8:30 a.m. and Uno High School, last year’s second-placer, clashes with Saint Jude Catholic School, the fourth-placer a year ago, at 10:00 a.m. in battle among the top four finishers in Season 6. The third 12-under contest will feature Philippine Cultural College against Grace Christian College at 1:30 p.m.
In the 14-Under tripleheader, reigning champion St. Stephen’s High School locks horns with Jubilee Christian Academy at 11:30 a.m., 2018 runner-up Saint Jude Catholic School battles Uno High School at 3:00 p.m. and 2018 bronze medalist Philippine Cultural College takes on Grace Christian College at 4:30 p.m. in the main dish of the six-game opening bill.
Another six games are scheduled for the following day, Sunday, October 20, also at the Uno HS gym. These are: Philippine Cultural College vs. Jubilee Christian Academy (8:30 a.m.), Grace Christian College vs. Uno High School (10:00 a.m.) and season-debuting teams MGC New Life Christian Academy vs. Pace Academy (1:30 p.m.) in the Developmental division; and Jubilee Christian Academy vs. Philippine Cultural College (11:30 a.m.), Uno HS vs. Grace Christian College (3:00 p.m.) and first-game teams Pace Academy vs. MGC New Life Christian Academy (4:30 p.m.) in the Aspirants division.
The tournament format in the eight-school competitions in both the 12-U and 14-U divisions calls for a single round-robin in the elimination phase. The seventh- and eighth-placers in prelims take an early exit while the top six finishers qualify for the playoffs. The No. 1 and No. 2 seeds automatically are seeded into the semis armed with a twice-to-beat advantage over their opponents. The third-to-sixth placers will play in the knockout quarterfinals with No. 3 and No. 4 also enjoying a twice-to-beat incentive. All deadlocks following the elimination round – either a two-way tie or a multiple tie – are to be broken through an extra playoff. In the case of a three-way deadlock, the team with the best quotient automatically grabs the highest spot – while the other two go to a playoff to determine their placings.
Pace Academy is the host for Season 7 of the PCYAA.
The road to the mountain top in both divisions will likely pass through third-year PCYAA member St. Stephen’s High School, which has won the Developmental crown the past two years and the Aspirants diadem a year ago.
Despite the departure of bigs Sherwin Li and Gian Batac, the Stephenians have eight players returning from the team that defeated Saint Jude Catholic School, 2-0 (63-54 and 68-58), in the best-of-three Aspirants finals.
These are double medalists Cedrick Ong (last year’s SSHS meal ticket in the Developmental), Sam Ng, Andrei Chan, Kenzo Bumanlag, Bryle Teng and Ian Reala – all of whom also were the core of the 12-Under squad that retained the title in 2018 while whitewashing Uno High School, 2-0 (63-46 and 68-63), in the finals to wind up with an unblemished 10-0 record.
SSHS also has Elton Dam with the Aspi for another season, elevated Adrian Young from the 2018 Developmental championship unit and got back foxy Kirk Cunanan – a member of the 2017 Developmental title-winning squad – following a one-year sabbatical.
Then again, SSHS’ potent Aspirants team will still revolve around the multi-faceted Josh Ong.
Ong once put together seven straight triple-double games, including an unprecedented quadruple-double once, and registered a T-D average in points, rebounds and steals for a season as the sparkplug of the Developmental player in SSHS’ inaugural PCYAA campaign in 2017 that produced a championship and a 12-1 record.
It was also Ong who played the key role in the Stephenians’ title triumph in the Aspirants division a year ago, along with The Tank Sherman Li, Gian Batac and now-Juniors member Dhean Yu.
In the four-division basketball competitions in PCYAA history, only in three instances has a school registered a title “three-peat.”
Uno High School won three consecutive titles in the Girls Division in Season 2 (2014-15), Season 3 (2015-16) and Season 4 (2016-17).
MGC New Life Christian Academy captured three straight crowns in the 14-Under Aspirants Division in Seasons 2, 3 and 4.
And Saint Jude Catholic School, which topped the 12-Under Developmental Division, also in Seasons 2, 3 and 4.
St. Stephen’s High School looks to duplicate the Green Knights’ feat in the Developmental division this year and join the elite list of back-to-back-to-back titlists.
* * *
Basketball is – and will always be – a team game.
However, there were some jaw-dropping individual performances by 12-year-old kids in the Developmental Division a year ago in PCYAA Season 6 (2018-19) that are worth reminiscing.
And, as they say, records are made to be broken.
Among them were:
On October 21, 2018 at the state-of-the-art gym of Season 6 host MGC New Life Christian Academy, Philippine Cultural College’s 5-foot-8 frontliner Zachary Loa cleared the glass for a whopping 57 rebounds in an 84-37 romp of Pace Academy in the Developmental 12-Under division while also tallying 32 points. A huge effort from Loa that was to pound the boards during a regular 40-minute game so much so his output of 57 rebounds rank among the highest in Philippine varsity basketball history, certainly in the 12-under division but most likely also at the 14-under, high school and college levels.
Loa, who turned only 13 last March 14, has since transferred to the University of the East.
In scoring, at no time in the history of the PCYAA had a player exploded for 50 points in any of the four divisions – 12-U, 14-U, Boys Juniors and Ladies Juniors – until last season when a trio accomplished the feat, two of them in the 12-Under event.
Sandra Villacruz, then a Grade 12 gal with Jubilee Christian Academy and now a rookie with the Ateneo de Manila University Lady Blue Eagles in the ongoing University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) Season 82 women’s basketball competitions, torched the Saint Jude Catholic School for 54 points and grabbed 19 rebounds during a 78-66 victory on January 13, 2019 in a PCYAA Ladies Juniors contest. (The PCYAA Ladies High School event is held every January in the league’s sports calendar.) The Lady Green Knights, however, had the last laugh as they overcame as twice-to-beat disadvantage in the finals to dethrone the Lady Jubileeans, who had earlier swept all eight of their assignments during the double-round preliminary phase.
Then again, the then-17-year-old Villacruz was only the third PCYAA player ever to breach the 50-point barrier for a pair of 12-year-old kids turned in the trick months ahead of her.
On October 28, 2018, also at the MGC NLCA gym, Grace Christian College’s burly center Rafael Carlo Tan poured in 59 points in an 86-76 loss to Saint Stephen’s High School in the Developmental division. The 12-year-old Tan, who also hauled down 21 rebounds, shot 18-for-44 from the two-point area and 4-for-12 from three-point range and went 11-for-18 from the charity stripes.
Two weeks later, November 11 to be exact, Pace Academy’s Wayne Marsson Barandino, who 1.5 months earlier had just turned 12, posted the first-ever 50-point triple-double in PCYAA history when he collected 51 points (on 22-for-36 field shooting), 19 rebounds and 19 steals in 36 minutes during the young Pacers’ 64-54 triumph over winless Grace Christian College.
Now, another edition of the PCYAA Developmental 12-Under tournament will unwrap on Saturday, October 19, at the Uno High School gym, along with the Aspirants 14-Under competitions.
A new set of youngsters are out to showcase their skills in PCYAA Season 7.
Come out and support the young ‘uns!