Friday, January 09, 2009

NOT JUST BASKETBALL

Cebu Daily Newspaper (http://www.inquirer.net/)
Friday January 9, 2009 issue
By Jonas Panerio, Correspondent
Rick Gabuya, Sports Editor

The collegiate sporting calendar in Cebu looks to get off to a spectacular start to the year as the annual Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation Inc. (CESAFI)-Partner’s Cup opens on Jan. 24 not just with the usual basketball competition but along with two other premier sports in volleyball and football.

The first two years of the Partner’s Cup has been primarily focused on basketball but with the Cesafi continuing its push to promote and develop the other sports, it has opened its doors to the volleyball and football competitions.

The corporate sponsors have also heeded the call as they were finally unveiled yesterday at the SCOOP Forum where the organizers, Cesafi commissioner Felix Tiukinhoy and University of Cebu basketball consultant Atty. Baldomero Estenzo signed their memorandum of agreement with television partner CCTN, who was represented by its president, Dodong Limchua.

Also present at the proceedings were Partner’s Cup basketball tournament commissioner Ramon “El Presidente” Fernandez, football tournament manager Jonathan Maximo and University of the Visayas head coach Elmer “Boy” Cabahug.

The first ever Partner’s Cup champions, and eight-time Cesafi titlists, UV Green Lancers, will be backed by the Prime Asia Lending, a company of the Metro Gaisano group. Metro Gaisano will also sponsor UV’s football and volleyball teams.

Ave Maria will back University of San Jose-Recoletos (USJ-R) while Aerosol-Tiger will take care of the University of San Carlos (USC). Hotel Fortuna of sports patron Lorenzo Sy will sponsor Southwestern University’s (SWU) basketball and volleyball teams while University of Cebu (UC) will be playing under the banner of Alaska Milk, the former ballclub of the Webmasters’ basketball head coach, Rhoel Gomez.

The Cebu Institute of Technology (CIT) will don the colors of Unilab. CDO, who backed last year’s basketball champions USJ-R, will now banner the University of Southern Philippines Foundation (USPF). USPF will be carrying the Cheesedog brand for basketball, the Funtastyk Young Pork Tocino for volleyball and Karne Norte Chunky for football.

Don Bosco has yet to be assigned a corporate sponsor.

The basketball tournament will be adopting the same format as the Cesafi tournament last year.

CIT, DBC and USPF though, will be allowed to have reinforcements from its alumni.

Games will be played on Saturdays and Sundays. The football tournament, on the other hand, will be an under-23 tournament dedicated to helping find potential players for the RP team, which will compete in the Southeast Asian Games in Laos at the end of this year. Competing schools will be USJ-R, UV, USC, USPF and UC.

The volleyball tournament will be catering to the women’s category with the USPF looking to defend its Cesafi title against USJ-R, SWU, USC, UC, UV, CDU and Velez College.

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