by Henry Liao (72)

This has been a very good year for basketball for the Xavier School and alumni teams. Our alma mater has been blessed with basketball domination and perfection for the past nine months.

This hoops junkie has been a witness to this XS basketball nirvana of late, having made stops at odd places such as the oven-hot San Juan Gym (for the San Juan Inter-HS tournament) and familiar places such as the old Xavier School wooden basketball court (for the PAYA games), Uno gym (for the Tiong Lian games), San Andres (Manila) gym (for the 31 years-and-under event), and the San Beda College and Chiang Kai Shek College basketball courts (for the Chiang San Ching competitions).

Supported by the AAXS and Mighty Sports Association, Xavier School’s teams went unbeaten in all the four tournaments participated in by our alma mater – in the Metro Manila Tiong Lian Basketball Association (9-0), and in the 85th Philippine Cultural High School tournament in the 31 years old-and-under division (7-0, our team was composed of alumni players, including one professional).

We also swept the two divisions in the 12th Chiang San Ching Memorial Cup. In the 22 years old-and-under Division I  (9-0), our team consisted of players from the Tiong Lian runner-up team of 2005 (like Rejan Lee) and the TL championship teams of 2006 (such as Woody Co and Charles Tiu) and 2008.  Xavier School also posted a clean sweep in the Juniors school teams-only Division II (10-0).

Xavier beat St. Stephen’s High School (which played with active pro Christian Luanzon), 70-63, in the PCHS 31 years-and-under tournament.  In the Division I finals of the Chiang San Ching Memorial Cup, we beat Chiang Kai Shek by more than 20 points.  In the Division II of the same event, we got past a strong Hope Christian High School team (beefed up by four recruits from Far Eastern University HS) by an 83-76 score.The Division I title was our third in a row and sixth overall in the 12-year tournament.  Our head coach, Caesar Wongchuking (Batch 1982), earned his 5th Coach of the Year award.  Woody Co, a member of the 2006 TL title squad who now plays for UP in the UAAP, was voted the tournament’s MVP.  Co and Rejan Lee were named to the tournament’s Mythical First Team.

The Division II title was our second consecutive in the tournament.  The head coach was Lito Vergara, who led the XS Juniors to the TL crown in 2008 and 2009.  It was Vergara’s final tour of duty.

Overall, we went 35-0 in those four tournaments.

The XS Juniors also went unbeaten en route to their third straight title in the 2008 Philippine Youth Athletic Association (PAYA) tournament.  They also did not lose a single game en route to their third consecutive title in the San Juan Inter-High School competitions last November. Okay, the XS Aspirants squad dropped a pair of games (both to Chiang Kai Shek, once in the elimination round and the other in Game Two of the best-of-three finals) in the 2009 Tiong Lian competitions.  But the Golden Stallions eventually beat CKSC in the decisive Game Three of the TL Aspirants finals to claim an unprecedented seventh straight championship.

(Photos by Zsa Zsa Yu)