The third quarter had ended with an exclamation point—a buzzer-beating, pass by Emon Jacob and a layup of Ramos that had left the entire Dasmariñas team in stunned silence. The score was 47-45, a razor-thin lead for Cebu, but the psychological damage was immense. Jacob had proven he could score at will, and Aekley Vicente had proven he could pass, rebound, and score like a giant. It was a duel of two players who seemed to exist on a different plane of reality.
The ten-minute break was a lifetime. In the conference room, the air was thick.
"Okay," Coach Gutierrez said, breaking the silence. He stood up and walked to the front of the room, his eyes fixed on the blank TV screen. "You just saw a war. Now you're going to see the result of that war. This is the quarter that matters. This is where talent isn't enough."
He pointed to the screen as the broadcast returned, showing the teams warming up.
"Look at their faces. Look at their bodies."
The Dasmariñas players leaned in. The camera was on Emon Jacob. He was at the free-throw line, methodically sinking shot after shot. His movements were fluid, identical, his breathing deep and rhythmic. He didn't look tired. He looked bored.
"He's... he's not even sweating heavily," Daewoo observed, his voice a hushed whisper of awe. "He just played 30 minutes of high-intensity basketball, and he looks like he just got here."
The camera then panned to Aekley Vicente.
The contrast was horrifying.
The 6'10" giant was bent over at the waist, his hands on his knees, his massive chest heaving. His face was pale, his jersey soaked through, clinging to his torso. He looked, in a word, gassed.
"He's done," Ian Veneracion said, his voice flat. Ian knew that look. It was the look of a big man who had hit the wall, whose legs were full of cement. "He's got nothing left in the tank."
"Exactly," Coach Gutierrez said, a grim, clinical tone in his voice. "Vicente has been playing a 30-minute sprint. Jacob has been training for a 40-minute marathon. Vicente is a monster. But Jacob... Jacob is a machine. Now, watch the machine take the monster apart."
Start of the Fourth Quarter: Naga 45 — Cebu 47
Naga City had the ball, and their desperation was a tangible thing. Aekley Vicente, running on pure pride, immediately posted up, demanding the ball. He got it on the low block, his back to the 6'7" Cebu center, K. Ramos.
"Here it is," Cedrick said, scribbling in his notebook. "His power move. Let's see what he has left."
Aekley backed him down. Once. Twice. But the explosive power from the first half was gone. The 'thud' of his shoulder into Ramos's chest was a push, not a blow. Ramos, to his credit, stood his ground.
Aekley, realizing he couldn't move the man, settled. He spun, but his footwork was slow, sloppy. He threw up a forced, off-balance hook shot.
It was short. It barely grazed the front of the rim.
Ramos grabbed the rebound.
In the conference room, Ian just shook his head. "He's got no legs. That shot was all arm. He's done."
Cebu, in stark contrast, was a picture of chilling, methodical calm. They didn't fast break. They didn't rush. Emon Jacob, sensing his opponent's exhaustion, walked the ball up the court.
He initiated the offense, running his defender (T. Morales, #11) off a simple screen from his center. Morales, who had been bravely hounding Jacob all game, was visibly tired. He was a step slow fighting over the screen.
Jacob caught the ball at the free-throw line, 15 feet out. This was his "office."
He didn't rush. He didn't even look at the rim. He faced his defender, jab-stepped once, and with a motion so fluid it looked like slow-motion, he rose up for his signature, high-release pull-up jumper.
Swish.
Score: Naga 45 - Cebu 49
"It's just... automatic," Marco said, his voice a sigh of defeat. "He's not even breathing hard. He's a robot. He's the Terminator. He literally cannot be tired."
Aekley Vicente, furious, demanded the ball again. His teammates, with no other options, fed him in the post. He was immediately double-teamed by Cebu's smart, rotating defense.
He tried to be the hero, to pass his team out of trouble as he had in the first half. He leaped, twisting in mid-air, and tried to fire a cross-court pass to his open shooter.
But his pass was slow. His legs weren't in it. It was a telegraphed, lazy lob.
Emon Jacob, who had been guarding his man on the opposite side of the court, read Aekley's eyes. He left his man and sprinted, intercepting the pass at full speed.
It was a devastating, high-IQ steal.
Fast break. A 3-on-2. Jacob led it, his long strides eating up the court. Aekley Vicente was jogging, still at the other free-throw line, his head down.
"This is the avalanche," Tristan whispered.
Jacob drove at the two retreating Naga defenders. They both, instinctively, collapsed on him. He didn't even look at them. He just floated a perfect, soft alley-oop pass to his center, Ramos, who was trailing the play. Ramos caught it and threw down an easy, two-handed dunk.
Score: Naga 45 - Cebu 51
The lead was six. The Naga coach called a timeout, but it was a futile gesture. The game was over. Aekley had made a critical, fatigue-driven mistake, and the machine had punished him for it.
In the Anita conference room, the mood was funeral.
"That," Coach Gutierrez said, pointing at the screen, "is the difference between a regional champion and a national champion. That is the difference between talent and preparation. Jacob's body is a weapon. He has trained it for this exact moment. Vicente's body is just... big. And right now, it's failing him."
"So what's the plan for that?" Daewoo asked, his voice barely audible. "How do we beat a guy who doesn't get tired?"
"We don't," Coach G said, his voice cold. "We don't beat him. We beat his teammates. You saw it. They're good, but they're just parts of his machine. We break the machine. We force them to be individuals. But first, we have to get there. And right now, LA Morales, the 'Janitor,' is standing in our way. Pay attention."
Out of the timeout, Naga's coach had to make a decision. He benched Aekley. The giant, his shoulders slumped in defeat, walked to the bench and collapsed into a chair, burying his face in a towel.
"He's out," Ian said, a strange mixture of relief and sympathy in his voice. "He gassed him. Jacob just... he just outlasted him."
Without Vicente, the Naga offense was non-existent. Their point guard, Ruiz, drove into the teeth of the Cebu defense, which, no longer needing to worry about the 6'10" monster, had collapsed into the paint. Ruiz threw up a wild, acrobatic shot that was swatted out of the air by the Cebu center.
Emon Jacob, on the other end, was now in full, glorious, terrifying command. He walked the ball up. He called for a clear-out. He was being guarded by the backup center, a slow, heavy-footed kid.
It was a mismatch of comical proportions.
Jacob hit him with a simple, in-and-out dribble. The center's ankles snapped. He stumbled. Jacob was past him. He glided into the lane and laid the ball in.
Score: Naga 45 - Cebu 53
The Naga players were broken. They turned the ball over again. A bad pass.
Jacob, again. This time, he didn't even try to create. He just... let his machine work. He ran his defender off a screen. His point guard hit him with the pass.
Catch.
Shoot.
Swish.
A three-pointer.
Score: Naga 45 - Cebu 56
The lead was 11. It was an avalanche.
Aekley Vicente checked back in. A final, desperate gamble. He got the ball on the block. He tried to spin. He was fouled. He went to the line, breathing like he'd just run a marathon.
He stepped to the free-throw line.
His legs were completely, utterly gone.
He shot the first free throw. It was a foot short, a pathetic clang against the front of the rim.
He shot the second. It was long, an angry, hard brick off the backboard.
He had missed both.
Emon Jacob, with the cool disdain of a predator, grabbed the rebound and pushed.
He was in his element. He drove the lane, drew the entire Naga defense, and at the last possible second, he fired a no-look pass to his point guard, Abella, who was wide open in the corner.
Swish.
Another three.
Score: Naga 45 - Cebu 59
"It's over," Tristan said, his voice a hollow whisper. He was just... he was just picking them apart. He wasn't even scoring. He was just... winning."
"He's making everyone else better," Coach G said, his voice a low growl of respect. "That's the mark. That's what you... what we... have to learn to do, Tristan. When you're the best player, you have two jobs. Score when you have to. And make it easy for everyone else the rest of the time. He's doing both."
The last five minutes of the game were a coronation. Jacob was in complete control, a maestro conducting a perfect, brutal orchestra. He'd hit a pull-up jumper one possession, then find an open teammate for a layup the next. He was toying with them.
With two minutes left, he drove the lane. Aekley, in a final act of pride, rose up to meet him, to block the shot. Jacob saw him coming. He didn't try to score. He just held the ball, let the 6'10" giant fly past him, and then, after Aekley had landed, he laid the ball in gently, a final, humiliating punctuation mark.
Score: Naga 47 - Cebu 66
The coaches from both teams emptied their benches. The game was over. Aekley Vicente sat on the bench, the towel over his head, a giant reduced to a statistic. Emon Jacob sat on his own bench, his arms crossed, his face as calm and impassive as it had been at the opening tip. He didn't even look like he needed a shower.
The final buzzer sounded.
Final Score: Cebu City High 68 — Naga City High 52
The TV cut to a graphic: WINNER: CEBU CITY HIGH. They would advance to play the San Fernando High.
The Dasmariñas conference room was a tomb. The players just stared, their faces pale. They had just watched, live, the two monsters they had only heard about in whispers. And one of them, the 6'6" machine who didn't seem to have human lungs, was now their likely opponent in the Group A final.
If they could get there.
Marco was the one to finally break the silence, his voice a high, strained squeak.
"So," he said, staring at the screen where Jacob was shaking hands with a crushed Vicente. "We have to go through the 6'9" Janitor who gets 16 rebounds... just to earn the right to get publicly executed by a 6'6" T-800 who can't miss and doesn't get tired."
He slumped, his head hitting the table with a dull thud.
"We are so, so dead."
Tristan looked at his team. He saw the fear. He saw the crushing, overwhelming weight of what they had just witnessed. He, too, was terrified. The skill gap was real. The challenge was... it was impossible.
He looked at Coach Gutierrez, expecting a fiery speech, a new strategy, something.
But the coach was just standing there, a strange, cold smile on his face. He looked at his broken, terrified team.
"Good," Coach G said, his voice a low, excited hum.
The team looked up, confused.
"Good?" Tristan asked, his voice shaking. "Coach, did you see what we just saw? That was... we can't beat that."
"We can," Coach G said, his eyes blazing with a sudden, wild fire. "Because they just showed us their hand. They just showed the whole world exactly who they are."
He strode to the whiteboard and uncapped his marker.
"We're not going to out-skill Emon Jacob. We're not going to out-power Aekley Vicente. We're not going to out-rebound LA Morales. We're not going to out-shoot Carlo Bedia."
"So what are we going to do?" Ian asked, his voice hollow.
The coach drew a large, crude drawing of a dog. A "grinder."
"We," Coach G said, stabbing the marker at the board, "are going to be the most annoying, physical, irritating, and relentless team they have ever played in their lives. We are going to make them hate us. We are going to drag them into a 40-minute, ugly, low-scoring knife-fight in a back alley."
He looked at Daewoo, at Gab, at John. "They have their Mythical Five. We have our 'Dog Pound.' We're going to throw fresh, angry defenders at their superstars until their legs fall off."
He looked at Tristan. "They have a machine. But a machine is predictable. A machine can't adapt to chaos. We... we are going to be the chaos."
He smiled. "They're worried about each other. They're not worried about us. We are the ambush. We are the trap. And they are about to fall right into it. Now, get your heads right. We have a monster of our own to deal with the day after tomorrow. Film study on CDO. Five minutes. Let's go."
The fear was still there. It was a cold, hard knot in their stomachs. But as they turned back to their notebooks, a new, fragile, terrified resolve began to form. The path was clear. It was the hardest path imaginable. And they had no choice but to walk it, one bloody, gritty, ugly step at a time.