With the unexpected turnout of the events, today’s match between the De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde (DLS-CSB) Blazers and the Jose Rizal University (JRU) Heavy Bombers in NCAA Season 98 was concluded early with a final score of 71-51, in favor of the Benilde Blazers.
During the fourth quarter of the match, JRU Heavy Bomber John Amores was observed charging at the Benilde bench and throwing punches during the altercation.
According to reports, it was not the first time that Amores lost his cool in a situation like this as he was also responsible for flaring up against Colegio de San Juan de Letran Knights’ Kobe Bryan Monje during their NCAA match in September and striking University of the Philippines’ player Mark Gil Belmonte during the preseason, which led to Belmonte receiving an indefinite suspension from the PG Flex Linoleum-UCBL Preseason Tournament.
Due to the fight that broke out, the NCAA management committee made the decision to call off the game, with 3:22 left to play, to avoid further escalation of untoward incidents for the safety of the players, coaches, and the audience.
According to the committee, they are going to conduct more investigations, which may result in punishments being handed out to players and coaching staff from both teams.
The NCAA ManCom representatives of both schools, Benilde’s Mr. Dax Castellano and JRU’s Mr. Paul Supan, agreed with the decision. With that, the Benilde Blazers claimed their 10th win of the season.
In an interview with The Benildean, Mr. Castellano and Benilde Center for Sports Development Director Stephen Fernandez expressed their opinions about the incident that happened between CSB and JRU today.
Mr. Castellano stated that besides the Blazers’ earlier match with JRU in the previous round of NCAA 98, there are no issues between the two teams that led to today’s fight. “Definitely we’ll meet with the NCAA ManCom to discuss and investigate the incident, so most likely, tomorrow we’ll have our meeting,” Mr. Castellano added.
Meanwhile, Coach Fernandez stated that he was disheartened that this incident had happened, “I wish it never happened, but we got to live with it already.”
Coach Charles Tiu also said in an interview with The Benildean that despite the incident that happened today, he is proud that his players did not join the brawl. “I’m in a way proud that for the most part, our guys held it together [...] They did not fight back because for us, we were just trying to play basketball and our goal is to win the championship, and we were not out there to start a fight.”
Benilde improved their win-loss record to 10-3 while JRU added one loss to their record, 6-7.
The Blazers are set to face the University of Perpetual Help System Dalta (UPHSD) Altas for round two at the same venue on Nov. 11 at 12:00 n.n., with a live telecast on NCAA Philippines’ Facebook and Youtube page.
