The 11th season of the Filipino Canadian Basketball League Yukon is drawing to a close and champions are being crowned.
Shirley@ColdwellBanker beat Aimaclaw 88-87 in game three of the 35-over league finals to win the series 2-1.
Leading the way for Shirley was Christian Robas with 26 points and 19 rebounds to go along with four assists, a steal and three blocks. Jomski Pahilanga had 18 points, nine rebounds and six assists.
For second-place Aimaclaw, John Madrigal had 30 points, four rebounds, an assist and two steals. Leo Amador had a double-double with 10 points, 10 rebounds plus two assists and a steal.
Shirley opened the series with a 104-96 win on April 7, and Aimaclaw tied things up on April 15 with 97-88 win to force game three.
Following the end of game three, game one of the 35-below league between Triomni Property Management and Earls Restaurant ended with Triomni winning 100-92 to take a 1-0 series lead.
RJ Siosan poured in 29 points and grabbed 10 rebounds, six assists and five steals for Triomni. Teammate Ian New ended the game with a very similar stat line of 28 points, 11 rebounds, eight assists and five steals.
As a team, Triomni had an impressive 22 steals compared to nine for Earls.
Earls top scorer, Bryan Hermosa had 31 points, 15 rebounds, eight assists, four steals and two blocks, and Edward Torres scored 22 and added 16 rebounds, three assists and two steals.
Game two of the best-of-three series is at 7 p.m. on April 29 at the F.H. Collins gym, following the third place game between Kit’s Kitchen and Dave’s Cleaning at 5:30 p.m.
The 35-below playoffs began back on March 11 with a pair of quarter-final games.
Four-seed Dave’s Cleaning beat five-seed The Brick and three-seed Kit’s Kitchen beat six-seed Tokyo Sushi Restaurant.
Earls and Triomni received byes into the semifinals as the first and second seeds.
Earls beat Dave’s Cleaning in the first semifinal on April 8, 104-103.
In the second semifinal, Kit’s Kitchen beat Triomni 119-117 to force a second game.
Game two of the second semifinal was April 14 and Triomni came out on top 103-94.
Contact John Hopkins-Hill at john.hopkinshill@yukon-news.com