Friday, January 31, 2003

Yulon wins second straight President Cup title

Chen Hsin-an had 26 points and 6 rebounds as Yulon beat Dacin, 83-74, in Game 3 of the President Cup Finals tonight, winning the best-of-three series 2-1 and repeat as champion.

In the deciding game, Yulon showed it's poise and experience. A 12-2 run in the third quarter opened up the game for Yulon, who increased the lead to 14 and led as many as 17 points.

Although Tien Lei had another brilliant game (27 points and 14 rebounds), Dacin never regrouped to stage a comeback rally after trailing by six in halftime. They were hurt by too many turnovers and never threatened Yulon thereafter.

Dacin lost to Yulon in the finals for the second time, after bowing out 0-3 in the A-League Finals last year, when they lost by 18 points PER game. But they do show a lot of improvement compared to last year and look promising in April's A-League regular season, with No.1 high school bigman Wu Dai-hao expected to join the team.

Yulon has now won four straight A-League champions, including 2003 President Cup, 2002 A-League regular season, 2002 President Cup and 2001 A-League regular season. You can see a "mini-dynasty" right there. Of course, for a team that has seven players on the national team roster, a mini-dynasty is not something to brag about.

With President Cup completed just before the Chinese New Year, teams are looking forward to April's A-League regular season. The last two teams - No.7 Yitong and No.8 Military - will have to play the Division II's top two teams, Jin-jin Design and NTCPE(National Taiwan College of Physical Education) in a single round-robin series to fight for two Division I seeds.

**Results
Finals(Yulon wins series 2-1)
Game 3: Yulon 83-74 Dacin(Halftime 41-35)
Yulon - Chen Hsin-an 26p+6rb+3a, Chen Chih-chun 16p, Chou Hong-yu 12p+9rb
Dacin - Tien Lei 27p+14rb, Lee Fong-yong 18p

**Final Standings
1. Yulon Dinos, 2. Dacin Construction, 3. BCC Mars, 4. Jutai Technology, 5. Bank of Taiwan, 6. Taiwan Beer, 7. Yitong Trust, 8. Military