KUWAIT CITY, June 6: Mario’s Restaurant roared past Ilocano Warriors to finally clinch a 71-59 win in a grueling high-octane Veteran Division encounter that saw the two teams match each other boot for boot up to the 3rd quarter of the game, as the 25th Conference of the PABAK/Western Union Basketball Tournament continues at the Hawally Disabled Sports Club.

The restaurateurs held a slight advantage into the first quarter, taking a 15-13 slim lead, but the warriors who were equally talented, soon caught up with them, leveling up their scores in the second and third quarters of the game.

As the encounter progressed with each side scheming to outclass the other, the restaurateurs surged ahead of their opponents winning the game 71-59, through the beautiful combination of play by Rommy, Yuri and Alex who scored 13, 11 and 10 points apiece. The Warriors’ side, who put up a good performance, also had Sabado, Juancho and De La Cruz contributing a total of 29 points to their losing side’s tally.

Mighty Rascals 76, Marina Volts 70
Rascals’ Jake had a fast start, lobbing the ball into the hoop from the center right in the first minute of the encounter. The volts saw that early shot as a wake up call and soon mobilized their team to go on the offensive to take a first quarter lead into the game. The Rascals, wary of last week’s defeat at the hands of the Suarez Pride Sailors, came into the game with a determination to win to please their fans and also boost their own morale. Rascals’ hard-hitting offensive players like Jake, Bernarte and Rex delivered double digit scores to hand them a 76-70 win over their very determined opponents who also fought very hard but lost.

KEO 71, Ali Abdul Wahab 50
This encounter from the start promised to be very exciting as the two sides battled fiercely to the end of the first quarter with KEO leading by a slim 24-18 margin. The KEO engineers, who won their game against Popeye last week, had the same players featuring in this week’s encounters, but that did not put off the Ali Abdul Wahab boys a bit, as they played very well in the first and second quarters only to lay back later in the game to allow the KEO boys to dominate them to the last minute, thus handing them a convincing 71-50 victory, with Dante, Loyola and Jayson sharing the honors by contributing a whopping 34 points to the victory.

 Fil-Am 58 Caboria Restaurant 49
Fil-Am on the other hand, got 13 points from Henry Jeff, 12 from Ignacio Bacuna and 9 points from Julios Gratias in their 58-49 defeat of the Caboria Restaurant boys in the third game of the weekend in the Pro-Leaguers Division.
The rest of the results were as follows:
Boubyan Warriors 74, Miami UnderDawgs 60
 K.S. Pico 59, Al-Mansouri Berksmen 55
 Flipside 57, Jaguars 55
Suarez Pride Sailors 74, Medics 61
 Kalex Co. 63, Desert Tigers 52
The PABAK/Western Union 25th Conference Tournament under the able management of Rod Cerezo and his team of officials is made possible by the kind sponsorship of Western Express Cargo, Kabayan Corner, Gulf Air, Orbit-Showtime Network, Century Properties and Mais Alghanim Restaurant.