Saturday was the long awaited opening day of the Filipino basketball league.

The league is known as the FCBLY in partnership with CFAY and CFSAY.

Six teams kicked off their season on opening day at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Secondary School.

Two 35 and Up league teams faced off and four Open Division teams played on Saturday.

The first game played was a shootout between Triniti Dental and Cornerstone Construction.

Both teams were locked in all game and it came down to the wire, but Triniti Dental edged out a close one by a final score of 103-101. The top scorers were Nico Sarmiento of Triniti Dental, who knocked down several 3’s, and Bryan Hermosa of Cornerstone Construction, who dominated the second half. They both finished with 35 points at the final buzzer. The number two and three scorers on Triniti were Sam Wilson, who dominated the boards down low with 24 points and Ian New with 23. On the other side, Bryan’s brother Ralph Hermosa chipped in 25 points and Rich Thompson added 17. Trinity head coach Joesel Rumbaoa was asked about the game afterward.

“We got good players. Hopefully next game, we get some more backup players coming in. We only played six players tonight and we had to play one of the top teams, they’re the former champions, Cornerstone and they have the best player in the Yukon, Bryan Hermosa. It’s tough to play against him.”

When asked about Hermosa’s performance, Rumbaoa replied, “Bryan’s hard to defend because he has a lot of moves and also the help of his brother, Ralph who is also a two-way player, both of them are two-way players and competitive players. We’re lucky that we won the game.”

Nico Sarmiento seemed to be hitting all of his shots in the second half and Rumbaoa remarked “Nico is always making his shots every game.

“We’ll just continue our game and hopefully we can go back and play again in the finals or the playoffs. But we are still missing some other key players. But we still played good tonight. Once we get those players back, hopefully we can play like we did tonight where we control everything.”

Bryan Hermosa was a star on Saturday for Cornerstone Construction.

“It was a close game, these guys are pretty tough to beat, they were the champions last year and they have a big guy Sam (Wilson) and all of their guards are pretty fast and they can shoot so I gotta give it to them. It was hard to guard all of them. We tried our best; last time we played them we were down by like 20 points so I’d say that was an improvement.”

When asked about his individual play, Hermosa credited his teammates for his success, describing how they were giving good screens and making good passes to get him open shots.

Hermosa was asked if there was anything that could have been improved in the loss.

“There’s a lot, to read their big guys, but they also have fast guys out there but I guess what we could do better is just our chemistry, a lot of our guys are new with us, we got probably four players that are new to the team so we gotta get used to playing with each other and these guys are pretty good, we started to trust each other by the end of the game here, but just play more and we’ll get better.”

When asked if there were any goals for the new season, Hermosa responded, “I just want to set an example for the younger kids, you know basketball, it’s not just basketball, it’s more of life, it’s not how you act on the court, it’s also how you act outside the court. I wanna set an example for the kids to be a good guy all around. Not just to your teammates but also the people around you.”

Hermosa added, “Consistency and discipline, it’s one thing to have a talent but if you don’t work at it, you lose it, so keep working your craft.”

Ian New scored an impressive 23 points in the win versus Cornerstone and provided the defence that was needed down the stretch to clinch the game.

New was asked how he felt about the game afterward.

“It was pretty exciting actually, I was looking forward to it, they’re a great, great team. We played against them in the semi-finals last year and they’re tough to beat, really tough to beat. Every time, it’s always a close game; it’s just really exciting to play against them and to get back in the league and just looking forward to all the games ahead.

“Feels good to be back for sure, kinda rusty but it’s the first game back.”

New was asked about the key to victory.

“Primarily defence, they have the two brothers Bryan and Ralph, they are both good players, good basketball players, they can score, they can defend and it seems like they don’t get tired at all and you have to push the ball at all times to try and get them uncomfortable with the defence and I think that was the key for us. We got two tall guys, Sam and Tony (Delorenzo) and they’re always there, even when they’re tired, they push through.”

When asked about his goals for the season, New replied, “For me, it’s just to have fun, play as hard as I can, as much as I can. That’s mainly it, just have fun.

“I also want to watch a couple games, there is a lot of good teams out there and they’re all tough to beat and it’s kinda exciting for this new season to start. Just excited for all the teams to play again.”

In other Open Division action over the weekend, on Saturday, Team Silver beat Northern Gateway Immigration by a score of 68-39. The top scorer for Silver was Chris Cariño with 23.

On the other side, Reychan Giango scored 21 in a losing cause.

On Sunday, Air North put on an impressive show of offence in their game against Big Bear Donair, winning by a score of 104-80. Aron Diaz and Lukjohn Palapal both provided 20 points in their dominating win. Diego Panganiban provided 35 points in a losing effort.

In the 35 Up Division Saturday, Home Hardware handled Chef Angelo with a final score of 81-69.

The top scorer for the winning team was Rien Carlo Augusto with 33 points, followed by James Tamarong with 17.

On the other side, Chef Angelo’s slick scorer Bon Bon Pocesion finished with 30 in the loss.

On Sunday, Domino’s handled Northwestel pretty easily, beating them by a score of 85-64. Kim Inandan lead the team in scoring with 17 points while Joesel Rumbaoa and Will Chicuti added 12 points each. Northwestel’s Nico Sarmiento scored 16 in the loss.

And finally, team Pillai beat Whitehorse Toyota by a final score of 54-47. For team Pillai, it was Colin Laforme leading with 19 points. In the losing effort, Whitehorse Toyota had Wren Agapito and Mez Labuguen scored 15 apiece.

– With files from Morris Prokop.