2011: A Roaring Year For The Red Lions

For the past few years, this mighty red school—San Beda reached collegiate basketball’s summit. It was the same story in 2011.

The Red Lions defied all odds before and during the season to defeat San Sebastian for the title, their fifth in six years.

Before the NCAA season opened, bad news arrived at the Red Lions den when 2010 Most Valuable Player (MVP) Sudan Daniel got injured and had to sit out the entire year.

With the loss of their top contributor, the Red Lions needed to rely on the other players for the season. Sweet-shooting Garvo Lanete, enforcer Dave Marcelo and Jake Pascual and the rest of the Red Lions needed to step up.

After winning the title the prior year via sweep, the Red Lions had its 26-game winning streak snapped by San Sebastian. Then in the second round, San Beda once again suffered another setback this time against the hard-fighting Jose Rizal University. That was the time the Red Lions turned things around.

San Beda racked up enough wins to arrange a playoff for the top spot against San Sebastian heading into the Final Four in which they emerged victorious. They got back at JRU in the Final Four before setting up a return match with the Stags in the finals.

During the best-of-three series, San Beda got another big boost from the bench which came at the right time with Lanete suffering an illness at that time. Mar Villahermosa took the cudgels in the series opener while Dave Semerad hit timely shots in Game 2 to sweep the Stags and claim the title proving that they can win without a foreign players’ reinforcement.

source: GMA News