By Jesus Garcia Jr.

THE University of Luzon Golden Tigers enjoyed a 13-point comfortable lead three seconds left on the third quarter and eventually won the match through technicality against arch-rival and defending champion University of Pangasinan Webczars when the latter walked out in protest before the third quarter ended over “bad officiating” by referees.

The no-show at the fourth quarter gave the Golden Tigers the first slot of  the best-of-three championship series of the 2006 PRISAA Pangasinan-Dagupan City Inter-Collegiate Basketball Invitational Championship at Dagupan People’s Astrodome last Thursday.

Leading by a mere point, 43-42, after two minutes of play at the third, the Perez Boulevard-based Golden Tigers began to take the upper hand and engineered a 21-7 spurt that stunned the beleaguered Webczars. Through out the quick-paced game, UPang head Coach Angel Gumarang began to complain on what he felt were series of bad calls from the referees to the Webczars’s detriment.

An ensuing conversion by Webczars point-guard Virgilio Olero nullified by referee Ric Baustista followed by a foul three ticks left at the third, the verdict prompted Gumarang to call all his boys out of the astrodome court to protest the arbiters’ biased officiating. On failing to return for the resumption of the game, Gumarang yielded the match, 62-50. Olero, who sank the first free throw, discontinued the second, try to join the walkout with his teammates led by Gumarang.

The move surprised the tournament officials and the more than 2,000 spectators prompting the league’s commissioner Edil Abalos to give the Webczars a five-minute grace period time to return to the court or face defeat. But Gumarang and his team ignored the warning and never returned to the court.

“It’s futile to continue the game because it’s very obvious that the two referees are one-sided in making calls favoring our opponents,” Gumarang later told local media. “We had a meeting last Monday and to ensure quality and fair officiating was in the agenda but it was not done. It’s really disgusting,” he added.

Asked if his boys will still play the second match tentatively scheduled on Monday October 9, Gumarang said his team will only play if the organizers will invite referees from Manila for the good of the league. And if this is not done, he said they are prepared to forfeit their remaining games.

 According to the UL camp, however, the same referees that officiated the game between the two teams that saw the Webczars wresting the championship last year from the Golden Tigers, were reportedly the same set that officiated the walk-out marred game. This was flatly denied by Gumarang. The other referee was Cris Tamayo.

Project director Arturo Tangco said he will study the matter and will ask the board for an emergency meeting to resolve the issues amicably and to the satisfaction of all parties.

Initially trailing the Webczars by four points on the first quarter, 14-10, the Golden Tigers of head coach Renato “Jack” Vidal started to unload catastrophic bombs on the second period with three-point specialist Rod Natavio doing much of the damage hitting five of seven attempts to guide his team seized the lead at the half, 41-37.

In the first game, the Lyceum Northwestern University Dukes led all the four quarters in double-digit to plaster the AIE-C Eagles, 88-69, and retained its third place finish last year.

The Dukes failed to capture a finals slot by suffering an overwhelming semifinals defeat to the Webczars, 88-64, last October 2.

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