For the third time in 2022, JRU’s John Amores lost his cool in a basketball game, this time going berserk and punching four CSB players in a fight-marred finish in the NCAA Season 98 tournament at the FilOil EcoOil Centre on Tuesday, November 8.
After cameras caught Amores and Chris Flores tangling up as Migz Oczon drilled a three for the 71-51 CSB lead with 3:26 left, the graduating Heavy Bomber was next seen trading barbs with someone in the direction of the Blazers’ bench.
Just as it seemed that cooler heads would prevail, Amores sprinted all the way from the Bombers’ bench to the Blazers’ side and punched Mark Sangco, Jimboy Pasturan, Taine Davis, and Oczon in quick succession – knocking out Pasturan and Davis in the process before he was restrained by security.
It took an hour of deliberations among league officials before the two schools’ Management Committee representatives, Paul Supan of JRU and Dax Castellano of CSB, agreed to have the game stopped in favor of the Blazers, 71-51, with 3:22 left to play.
“The NCAA Management Committee has decided to stop the JRU Heavy Bombers vs Benilde Blazers game to avoid further escalation of untoward incidents and for the safety of the players, coaches, and audience,” the league said in a postgame statement.
Prior to this major outburst, Amores already made headlines for an endgame flare-up earlier in the season against Letran’s Kobe Monje and his preseason punch-out of UP reserve Mark Belmonte.
Before being a casualty of Amores’ assault, Pasturan led all scorers with 18 points off the bench with a game-high plus-minus of +33, while MVP candidate Will Gozum tallied a double-double of 15 points and 10 rebounds. Oczon scored 7 in 12 minutes, while Sangco had a 2-point, 13-board line.
Marwin Dionisio matched Pasturan with 18 points of his own in the loss, while John delos Santos and Joshua Guiab scored 6 apiece. Amores, meanwhile, already had a sorry game of 4 points on 1-of-12 shooting before venting his ire on the rest of the opposing team.
Meanwhile, the EAC Generals earned their first win of the season in the first game with a 59-53 squeaker over the Perpetual Help Altas.
