ZAMBOANGA CITY – Nueva Ecija displayed its poise and maturity down the stretch to trounce Zamboanga, 69-56, and clinch the OKBet-Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League 4th Season title late Monday at the Mayor Vitaliano Agan Coliseum here.
Recovering from a 65-75 beating in Game 2, the Rice Vanguards struck hard in the second quarter to pull away and wrap up their best-of-five series, 3-1.
After being held to a 15-15 count in the first 10 minutes, Nueva Ecija opened the second quarter with a 14-0 salvo behind the hot shooting of Bryon Villarias to zoom ahead and log the biggest spread of this series, 39-19.
Villarias, a six-foot guard from Jose Rizal University, registered 14 points, 10 rebounds and two steals to emerge as Most Valuable Player of the national finals.
Backing up Villarias were Michael Juico, Michael Mabulac and Jonathan Uyloan.
Juico finished with 11 points and four rebounds, Mabulac with 10 points, eight rebounds, four assists and two steals and Uyloan with nine points for Nueva Ecija coach Jerson Cabiltes, who grabbed his fifth straight title in various leagues, much to the delight of team owner Bong Cuevas.
Cuevas, together with Nueva Ecija Mayor Rianne Cuevas and other bigwigs of the province, flew over to Zamboanga to rally behind the Vanguards, who clinched the North Division title and, eventually, the national crown following an 81-75 win in Game 1 and a 75-74 triumph in Game 2 in Palayan City.
Aside from that, Cuevas also allowed the Vanguards to bring in their respective families in this southern peninsula.
MPBL All-Star and season MVP Jayvee Marcelino tried to inject life to Zamboanga, but he failed as the most that he could do was to cut the lead to 16, 40-24.
Marcelino, a former Lyceum of the Philippines University star, tallied 17 points but failed to draw enough support as no Zamboanga player contributed double figures with Jhaymo Eguilos, Ralph Tansingco and Cyril Tabi chipped in only seven points apiece.
The Rice Vanguards were able to break away by controlling the boards, 59-40, to somehow negate their poor free throw shooting that saw them making only seven of 23 tries for an ugly 30.4 percent.
In contrast to their Game 3 shooting from the rainbow area in which the Vanguards connected only one of 19 attempts, including two by Villarias and one by Taganas, who also pulled down 10 rebounds.
No less than MPBL commissioner Kenneth Duremdes handed the P14-million trophy to Cuevas during the awarding ceremony.
MPBL operations chief Emmer Oreta, executive Joe Ramos and head of security Rudy Distrito joined Duremdes in handing over the Finals MVP trophy to Villarias, who also received a 50-inch Xtreme TV, Coach of Year trophy to Cabiltes and the championship rings to the members of the Vanguards.
Cuevas is set to provide additional championship rings as the MPBL allots only a total of 22.