Rigmarolers B Suffers 1st Defeat

It was a game of two of the undefeated teams in the 2nd Season of the KBBL. And the game started out slowly for the K88 Rigmarolers Team B. With the team’s starting center Jun “Chunky” Ramos and starting forward Randy “Buffalo” Javier both arriving late for the game, the opponents from Batch 99 raced off to an early 8-0 lead at the start of the ballgame.

With the Rigmarolers eventually warming up themselves into the ballgame, they immediately caught up with their opponents after a momentum-breaking time out. Thanks to the timely shooting of the team’s resident 3-point sniper Jay “The Mouse” Cruz. When the halftime buzzer sounded, the ballgame was already tied.

With Bimbo “The Answer” Bersalona applying his magic lotion on his legs at the start of the second half, he leads the charge, together with Javier in building up a ten-point lead midway into the 3rd Quarter.

But the opponents were not to give up that easily. Not with the help of the game referees who had a lot of questionable and inconsistent calls and non-calls during the whole of the second half of the ballgame. But the Rigmarolers also had their share of blunders with their lack of focus on some crucial stretches of the game, including missing 4 out of 5 freethrows with barely two minutes remaining in regulation, which could have practically sealed the game’s outcome in favor of the Rigmarolers. Regulation ended with the score again tied, thus requiring the 5-minute extension period.

The start of the overtime period saw the Rigmarolers race to an early 4-6 point cushion which they were able to protect up until the last two minutes.

Then the unthinkable happened.

With the Rimgarolers still ahead by 2 points with barely one minute remaining, Batch 99 got ready to take two freethrows on a foul given up by the Rigmarolers. One of the referees called a technical foul on Ramos for a delay-of-game infraction when the latter kicked the ball out of frustration. Batch 99 sinks 3 out of the 4 freethrows given them. And then they score another 2 points on another possession. Thus, the Rigmarolers’ 2-point lead became a 3-point deficit within the blink of an eye.

But the defending champions would not give up that easily on this ballgame. In the ensuing play, the team sets up Bersalona for a 3-point shot which swooshes the bottom of the net. With the ballgame again tied, Batch 99 tries to score in their next offensive play in vain as the Rigmarolers’ defense held itself up steadily. Collaring the rebound, the Rigmarolers pitch a fastbreak pass to Bersalona who races up against two defenders. Using his body as a shield, Bersalona executes a body-contact-inviting layup which, unfortunately, bounces out of the ring paving the Batch 99’s last attempt to win the ballgame. With the Rigmarolers’ team defense still in disarray as a result of the previous fastbreak attempt, Batch 99 scores on a running jumper by one of their players as the final buzzer sounded. Thus, Batch 99 steals the game from the Rigmarolers with a 2-point winning margin.