On the 5th Season of Gaponians Basketball Event held September 29, 2017 at Jumeira Baccalaureate School, The Blue Warriors prevailed as they defeated the Gray Spurs in the finals.
In the eliminations, the Warriors beat the Red Bulls (Team Fujairah) during the opening game thriller, where the game was proving to be a close fight and the Warriors were only up by a point in the last 2 minutes, but the Bulls were not able to make any field goal since the 2 minute mark, eventually losing 52-43.
Celtics
The Season 4 champion Green Celtics (Team Abu Dhabi) beat the Purple Kings after being down by 12 in the five-minute mark. The Celtics rallied and tied the game, turning it into one of free throws with Celtics winning only by three points, 51-48.
The Aqua Hornets failed to pass The Gray Spurs after a careless inbound play with seconds left, which was converted to a great play by the Spurs’ strong backcourts Rosete and Agala to win it, 55-53.
The Gold Cavaliers overpowered the undermanned Orange Knicks 58-49.
In the semis, The Spurs capitalized on the Cavaliers’ turnovers late during the 4th quarter in a close game, winning it 56-51 while the defending champion Celtics lost to the Warriors in a game where the score was tied in the end of the 3rd until Tirona, Santos, and Bugayong took over the game for the Warriors in the 4th to win, 69-56.
Spurs
In the finals, the Spurs with no match-up to the game of the Warriors’ Tirona and Santos, took an early lead and cruised till the end of the 3rd quarter. After being down by up to 19 points, the Spurs took the momentum early in the 4th quarter, rallied and managed to close the gap by two points. With the Spurs closing in, Elduayan drilled back-to-back runaway three-pointers as the Warriors kept their poise to win, 69-60.
Orange took the Best Muse award, Jay Quintana for Best Coach and the Mythical Five Awardees were Edmer Bernal (Center), Jayson Bugayong (Power Forward), LA Santos (Small Forward) Jonathan Agala (Shooting Guard), Alex Rosete (Point Guard), and Allen Tirona bagged the Season 5 MVP.
Sponsors
The Event was successful with the help of sponsors and admins Marlon Panis, Dhanzkie Elduayan, Dario Banares, Dhon Buenaflor and Albert Dimalanta, event committees Emil, Eric, Gerald, Mac, and Kevin and game-officiating JK Sports.
The real highlight of the event was the wedding proposal by Mr. Tan-Tan Agala to his girlfriend/(wife-to-be), Ms. Tein-Tein Ramos, the video of whuch went viral in the social media with more than four million views and was shared almost 30,000 times in just 4 days after being uploaded.
This moment manifest the real essence of the sporting event held to gather the families and friends of OFWs from Olongapo City in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to share the love and unity. As Gaponians say: “One love. One Team. One City.”
