By EARL WRIGHT

JEDDAH — The mega finals of the Wafu Basketball Association (WBA) Season 2 had Syriana and El Amigos lifting trophies recently as the undisputed champions in the Destroyers and the Speed divisions respectively at the Sheraton Jeddah Sports Complex basketball court.

Syriana, the Destroyers B bracket champion, entered the court as odds-on favorite over Destroyers A bracket champion Cabalen.

But Syriana needed an outstanding game by Mohammed Hamdi and breaks in the dying seconds to beat a fighting Cabalen squad 85-81 in a pulsating down-the-wire contest.

Cabalen nibbled away Syriana’s 10-point lead at 73-63 with 6:21 to play in the fourth quarter and Barry Nader’s second of two three-pointers tied the game at 81-all, time down to 59 seconds.

Hamdi then took charge for Syriana, hitting the critical free throws including the game-clinching ones, after Syriana regained possession by grabbing a defensive rebound with seven ticks left.

The hard-working Hamdi finished the night with 25 points.

Coached by Hassan Zeineddein and managed by Nassib Kabbani, Syriana used its material advantage offensively and defensively to steadily pull away and lead by as many as 11 points, 63-52, in the third quarter.

Nader led coach Cris Melebo’s Cabalen team with 19 points.

Earlier, Amigos watched TRCJCIM collapse in the stretch of what had been a back-and-forth game to score a 67-60 victory. Amigos are the Speed A bracket champion and TRCJCIM the winner from bracket B.

Named Best Player of the game in each division were Hamdi and Patrick Marcial, who tallied 16 points each.

Galzote led TRCJCIM’s losing cause with 15 points.

Chief guest Consul RJ Sumague of the Philippine Consulate in Jeddah attended the finals along with Welfare Officer James Mendiola of POLO-OWWA. They both handed out the trophies and awards for the second game, while the other VIP guests namely Jeddah United founder Obaid Madani and Mohamed Bayoumi, friend of the Filipino community and recipient of the Presidential Banaag Award, had their turn for the awards ceremony in the first game although they both stayed up to the second game.

Awarded MVPs were Marcial in the Speed and Hami in the Destroyers Division. The mythical five awardees were:

Destroyers Division: Best Point Guard — Ali Nasser (Cabalen), Best Shooting Guard — Mark Lagria (Cabalen), Best Power Forward — Jesum (Syriana), Best Small Forward — Ayman (Syriana), Best Center — Faisal (Syriana).

Speed Division: Best Power Forward — Meru, Best Small Forward — Ryan, Best Shooting Guard — Alonzo, Best Point Guard — Jeff Galzote, Best Center — Edward Ballinan.

The members of the WBA committee that ran another successful tournament are: Bander Al-Sahli, president/commissioner; Reesh Raoof aka Richy Reesh, vice president/founder; Francis Masarap, technical director/president and Sultan Al Rasheedi, sergeant-at-arms/ co-founder. Benz Quinto headed the medical team with JP Sarmiento, Robbie Sarmiento and Mohammed Bafarath in the support team.