They had the lead all through out the first half of the match as the squad from Palau Community College (PCC) dubbed as the Mesekui took advantage of miscues and poor shooting percentages from their opponent. Mesekiu boys were able to put up a 20 point spread that resulted to a score of 44 – 24 at the end of the first and second periods of the game. With the third period quarter underway, the defending champs from topside found their groove. They started to heat up on both ends of the floor as they forced series of turnovers from the young PCC that resulted to transition offense and points for team Styxers. They produced 36 points alone on the third period which gave them the upperhand entering the final period courtesy of Una’s 18 point production and strong hard drives coming from number 2 guard Benny Feliciano who finished with 14 points. However, Styxers were not able to sustain their lead of 6 as the the boys from the college fortified their defense to stop the midrange jumpers coming from their opponent which started their late run in the remaining minutes of the game. With a total points of 15, all in the second half, Duffy of PCC shot back to back three pointers to tie up the match. In addition, a what would be broken down play from PCC, Duffy ended up with the loose ball that left him alone in the wings with the shot clock ticking to its last 4 seconds, he threw up a desperate three point shot that went swooshing in giving them the three point advantage a minute and seconds left. From there, the momentum turned to PCC’s side were the Styxers could not recover, thus ending the game with the Mesekui boys winning, 81 – 75.
As for other game results, On that same night 14th of January Meda defeated team On-fire with a score of 86 – 78, while Blue Sharks edged out Surangel 105 – 101, in a high score game. And on the 13th of January, Ngiwal 79ers downed Airwaves, 68 – 62 see saw battle. Turtleriders outplayed Aimeliik, 87 – 59. Jaguar escaped a scare from the Rangers, 63 – 60, in the battle of the bigman. Jay Naguit of Rangers scored 27 points while Jaguar’s center PhillipManago finshed with 20 points. With regards to the games on the 12th of January, Kabong crushed Triggerfish with a score of 95 – 33 and Islanders drubbed Stingers 88 – 52 while Surangel team won by an inch against Breakers with an end result of 84 – 81.Games are played every day from Monday to Saturday were Monday, Wednesday, and Friday will be set for Division 1 teams which is composed of ten teams and Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday are scheduled for Division 2 teams. The National Basketball League is supervised by the Palau Basketball Federation and is sponsored by Shell, Palau.
