THE San Beda College Red Lions foiled the barrage of the Letran Knights 67-39, on Friday to capture their record 17th National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) seniors basketball title at the Araneta Coliseum.

What was expected to be a close match turned out to be a lopsided affair as Baser Amer, Jake Pascual, Olaide Adeogun, Arthur de la Cruz, Rome de la Rosa and Jose Antonio Caram led the Lions’ relentless pounding of the Knights.

The celebration was made even sweeter by the fact that besides winning six of the last seven NCAA championships, San Beda has overtaken Letran as the team with the most number of collegiate titles in the oldest collegiate league in the country.

“My players are the real heroes in this finals because they were the ones playing and winning the crown. What I just did is to guide them into that dream. Nothing was easier, Letran really played well also. They made it harder, tougher for us. I also gave credit to the Knights for putting up a good championship showdown,” said San Beda coach Ronnie Magsanoc.

Even the sacrifice of Zamboanga native Amer, who was supposed to join his family in the feast of sacrifice of their faith, paid off as he led the Red Lions’ offense all throughout allowing them to lead by as much as 31 points, 62-31, with less than four minutes remaining in the game.

The rookie coach Magsanoc, all determined to win his first championship title as a coach, had his boys outsmarting the Knights in all departments of the deciding game to end the series, 2-1.

They won Game 1 (62-60), but lost Game 2 (64-55) on Saturday.

“The whole team sacrificed so much to win the crown. All of them made that big sacrifice especially on practice and they reaped the dividend. They deserved it,” added Magsanoc.

The 5’10 Amer, who is in his second year in the league was later named Most Valuable Player.

“I’m very happy with this victory. This is more sweeter and one of the best in the NCAA,” said Amer.