IN my half-a-century local basketball travelogue, only twice have I personally witnessed a triple-overtime game. The first came on Valentine’s Day in 2005 during the opener of the best-of-three Juniors (high school) finals between defending champion St. Stephen’s High School and Xavier School in the Metro Manila Tiong Lian Basketball Association (MMTLBA) tournament held at the Chiang Kai Shek College gym.
It was the longest game in MMTLBA’s 43-year existence as the Stephenians defeated the Golden Stallions, 94-81, in a three-overtime thriller that took an extra hour (for 15 additional minutes of playing time) to complete.
SSHS tallied the final 12 points in the first and only three-overtime title-series encounter in league annals when XS was reduced to its barest minimum of five men during the third five-minute extension due to injuries and foul problems.
The Golden Stallions subsequently deadlocked the series at 1-1, but the Stephenians went on to retain the crown by taking the decisive third game.
The second three-OT game that this Hoopster attended was the one-game finals between National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) rivals San Sebastian College and San Beda College last Saturday in the 2nd Philippine Secondary Schools Basketball Championship (PSSBC) at the SGS Gym in Quezon City.
Again, it was a high school game. And a 40-minute game that was expected to last no more than 1.5 hours of real time was completed after nearly another hour had passed.
And the proud senior citizen (in two years) that I am just watched the heart-stopping proceedings from the left baseline on my feet. (Only limited seats were available at the SGS gym.)
The watch was well worth it because of the incredible shootout between Baste’s Lorenzo Navarro and Beda’s Joshua Caracut.
Caracut kept the Red Cubs afloat all game long with his five triples since the final minute of regulation.
He had successive three-pointers to send the game into first overtime at 75-all (after SBC trailed 70-60), another pair in the second OT (including one that gave the Bedans a two-point leading in the final 20 seconds) and a buzzer-beating out-of-nowhere trey that forced a third extension.
Overall, Caracut wound up with six triples (out of 12 attempts) and 30 points. However, the Golden Staglets, who lost twice to the “five-peating” champion Red Cubs in NCAA Season 89, had an answer for Caracut’s heroics in Navarro.
It was the heady Navarro who knocked in a short jumper to force a second OT. It was he that also orchestrated the clutch plays in the third OT that gave SSC-R a 108-102 victory and the PSSBC title.
Deservedly so, Navarro was voted the league’s Most Valuable Player (MVP) with his triple-double performance in the epic triple-overtime contest – 32 points, 11 rebounds and 13 assists.