Chiang Kai Shek College held back a late rally by St. Stephen’s High School to take the opening game in the best-of-three championship series of the 7th Baden Powell Cup Basketball Tournament last February 13 at the CKSC Narra Campus Benjamin Chua, Jr. Gymnasium.

The game was actually delayed by half an hour after the 24-second shot clock suddenly malfunctioned even before the game started. But as soon as the problem was fixed, the game went into full throttle with the CKSC Blazing Dragons waxing hot starting on an 8-to-1 blast. As St. Stephen’s got its groove towards the end of the quarter, the latter answered back with 9 straight points to even lead 10-8 going to the last minute of the game. CKSC’s Gregory Licaros took the last shot with twelve seconds to go and tied the score at 10-all at the end of the first quarter.

Jan Ong started the second quarter with a triple, and added 4 more points, with Xergg Ang contributing two more triples, as CKSC ended the second quarter with a double-digit lead over SSHS, 29-19.

Brian Ng shot 8 points in the third quarter to keep SSHS in contention, with the deficit down to 8 points at the end of this salvo, 47-39.

At the start of the last canto, the Blazing Dragons started another surge and even led by as much as 18 points, but the Stephenians crawled back into the game and was down by only 5 points going into the last two minutes of the game. CKSC’s Marc Katigbak was fouled with SSHS in penalty trouble. Though he missed both charities, he compensated for it by grabbing the loose ball, and when fouled again, he made sure he got both charity shots in. The game buzzer ended with CKSC winning, 62-56.

12 players from CKSC led by Kenneth Padilla and Jan Ong contributed points for their team, while only five players from the Stephenians scored for their team. Brian Ng led SSHS with 21 points, Julius Ong got 11 points, Kevin Matthew Cua contributed 10, while Jasper Young and Nickson Tan had 8 and 6, respectively.

Game 2 will be held on February 17 (Wednesday), 4:30PM at the SSHS Basketball Gymnasium with the CKSC Blazing Dragons attempting to bring home their fifth crown, while the Stephenians will try their best to extend the series. Awarding of special awards for other participating teams will also be held during halftime of the game.