A three-point play from Mars Echarri and Richard Co's free throw conversion in the dying seconds gave Po's Marketing the first finals berth by nipping Lotus Neo Ballpen, 77-75, Wednesday night in the semis of the 2nd Conference of the Fil-Sino Inter-color Basketball Tournament at the Po Hang Gym of Bacolod Tay Tung High School.

Echarri completed a three-point play, before Co sank one of his two crucial free throws with four seconds remaining to give Po's a 77-75 buffer after Lotus grabbed the lead at 75-73 on one free throw connection each by Yubi Miag-ao and Chibon Uy.

Lotus actually had a chance to send the game into overtime after the missed free throw by Co, but Uy failed to convert on a wide open lay-up with one second left. In the other semifinal clash, fourth seed Kuppa Coffee and Tea upset top seed Eversure Marketing, 79-78, to force a sudden-death encounter tonight for the other finals slot.

With Kuppa leading 72-61 and five minutes left, Eversure's Marc Lo hit all of his three three-point shots to go on a 9-1 run, narrowing Kuppa's advantage to 73-70.

After Bobby Yap nailed one of his two free throws for Kuppa with 18 ticks to go, but Ralph Tan of Eversure could also only manage to split his opportunities to keep his squad at bay at 75-76 with 4.5 seconds remaining.

In the ensuing play, Eversure recovered the ball, but Lo missed his halfcourt shot that would have won the game.

Spearheading Kuppa's balanced offensive attack was Albert Li with 20 points, while Jan Jan Young still remained hot from beyond the arc with four three-point conversions to finish with 13 markers.

Also making solid contributions for Kuppa was Roger Montalbo, pouring in 10 points, while Aaron Guevarra, Eugene Tsai and Yap added 9 markers each.

Eversure, which fought back from a 51-60 deficit at the end of the third quarter, was led by Lo with 17 points as Ralph Tan canned 14 points. Jeff Wee, Brian Tan and Stephen Tan shot 12, 11 and 6 points, respectively.

Meanwhile, Arvin Gustilo erupted for 23 points to anchor the charge of Po's, while Echarri finished with 20 markers. Bol Manaloto and Arnold Betita registered 11 and 5 points, respectively.

Pacing Lotus was Mic Mic Germudo with 15 points as ex-varsitarian Peter Galon and Ronan Soyao posted 12 and 8 markers, respectively. Glenn Ortaliz and Miag-ao had 7 points apiece. *CIT

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