By ADRIAN STEWART CO

Three Negrense cagers from the Iloilo City-based basketball club Elite Lab have committed to join the College of St. Benilde (CSB) Blazers in the NCAA men’s seniors basketball.

Negros Occidental’s La Carlota City-native forward Irele Galas, Bacolod City-based center John Lester Amagan and San Enrique-native John Loyd Martinez opted to pick the Blazers among other schools, according to Elite Lab co-founder Eugene Chua.

Aside from the three Negrenses, three more Elite Lab players in Iloilo City-native wingers Renel Jopillo and Moisis dela Cruz, and Iloilo province’s Pototan-native point guard Kent Parrenas also agreed to join the Blazers.

Chua shared that Blazers head coach Charles Tiu along with their team boosters Frank Lao and Jacob Lao personally went to Iloilo City earlier this year to secure the commitment of the six players.

“The Elite Lab is happy that Irele, Lester, John Loyd, Renel, Kent, and Moisis will realize their dreams to play in Manila with their commitment with the CSB Blazers,” Chua told Watchmen Daily Journal yesterday.

“They were personally overseen by coach Charles and the CSB boosters and they agreed that these six players will be of help to the Blazers. In fact, they were already training there for a month now,” he added.

Galas, Amagan, Parrenas, Jopillo, Martinez, and Dela Cruz were just the latest members of the John Guanco-mentored Elite Lab to be recruited in Manila, aside from Negros Occidental’s Pontevedra-native Fritz Suclan of the Adamson University Falcons and Ilonggo Erlance Pedrita of Colegio de San Juan de Letran Squires.

“We are glad to serve as an instrument to these talented basketball players to be discovered by Manila-based teams,” Chua said. 

“We will continue to discover more talent here in Western Visayas and help them get ready for the big leagues,” he added./ASC, WDJ