High-school kingpin Xavier School’s dynastic rule in the Metro Manila Tiong Lian Basketball Association competitions lives on.

In the recently-concluded 40th MMTLBA tournament, the Golden Stallions captured the championship in both the Aspirants and Juniors divisions for a record third consecutive year.

The Aspirants division features players aged 14 and under while the Juniors division involves players aged 15 and above (but no more than 19 years old)

Xavier School is the only team in Tiong Lian history to snare both division titles in the same campaign on more than one occasion.

Last week, the San Juan City-based school grabbed a mind-boggling eighth straight Aspirants Division diadem with a two-game sweep of Chiang Kai Shek College in the best-of-three finals following 76-71 and 76-66 victories.

Overall, the Xavier Aspirants registered an unblemished 9-0 record. The team was bannered by three-point hotshots Jarrell Lim and Anton Lapez, who are members of the RP Under-13 training pool under coach Mark Herrera, and big men Isaac Go (a hulking 6-2 slotman) and Chang Gi Hong (a bulky 5-11 power forward from Korea). All four are completing their seventh-grade studies next month.

Jarrell, a son of Barako Bull team physician John Lim in the Philippine Basketball Association, was voted the Aspirants Most Valuable Player after pacing the tournament with a 19.1-point average.

Equally dominant in the Tiong Lian games were the Xavier Juniors, who scored a title “three-peat” with twin victories of 82-77 and 83-75 over back-to-back runner-up St, Jude Catholic School in an exciting best-of-three titular series.

Just like their Aspirants counterparts, the Xavier Juniors finished their 2010 campaign with an immaculate 9-0 mark. Overall, the Golden Stallions own a 19-game winning streak over three seasons (including the Game Three win in the 2008 finals and 9-0 in 2009).

Xavier thus became the second school in Tiong Lian annals to win three straight championships on two occasions. Chiang Kai Shek College was the first to accomplish the feat, turning in the trick from 1978 to 1980 and from 1990 to 1992.

The Gold and Blue team also claimed a “three-peat” from 2001 to 2003 behind the terrific trio of Joseph Yeo, Tyrone (TY) Tang and Chris Tiu.
Overall, the Xavier Juniors have won nine Tiong Lian titles – trailing only CKSC’s league-high 14. However, the former has topped the competitions seven of the last 10 seasons.

This year’s XS Juniors squad was built around sophomore Jeron Teng and graduating senior Jose Anton (Jett) Manuel, the tournament’s No. 1 and No. 2 scorers with per-game averages of 23.3 and 20.1 points, respectively.

A key member of the RP Under-16 Team that placed fourth in the 1st FIBA Asia Under-16 Championships in Malaysia late last year, the bull-strong 6-2 Teng sprained his right ankle in the early in the first quarter of the Tiong Lian title-series opener and scored just five points in five minutes of action.

The 15-year-old son of former PBA strongman Alvin Teng, however, bounced back in the series-clinching Game Two with 25 points, 11 rebounds, four assists and two steals in 35 minutes.

Jeron also succeeded older brother and co-Xavier alum Jeric Teng – who’s now with the University of Santo Tomas in the University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) – as the Tiong Lian Juniors scoring champion and MVP.

Manuel was Xavier’s leading scorer in Game One with 21 points. The 5-10 swingman knocked in 15 markers in Game Two despite being benched for the entire third quarter and limited to 16 minutes overall due to foul trouble.

Headed to the University of the Philippines in the UAAP in July, Manuel topped the tournament in two-point field goal percentage (.609) and overall field goal percentage (.529).

Manuel, Kevin Lim and Alejandro Dizon, all of whom have completed their high school eligibility, are the only Xaverians to suit up for the school’s Tiong Lian championship team in each of the last three years.