By Relly Carpio
INQUIRER.net

LEVEL UP!, in cooperation with Netopia, recently held an open competition for their casual basketball game FreeStyle at the Netopia Bridgeway at the Greenhills Shopping Center. Sixteen teams of three members each registered at the venue and went through the eliminations.

The top four teams who made it to the semifinals are Just Play, Reinezzence, Stratos, and Turbulence. It was a close match between Just Play and Reinezzence with the latter taking the win in the last game of their best-of-three after going into double overtime. Turbulence won over Stratos and went on to grab the top title for the competition after winning three matches straight in the best-of-five in the final round versus Reinezzence. Though it wasn’t an easy win as the first match went into overtime, and their third win was decided by a two-point clutch shot.

Team Reinezzence is composed of Bryan Castillo a.k.a. BoyTalbog, Kevin Imperial a.k.a. Bell, and Gary Tiro a.k.a. KalyeBoy20. Champion Team Turbulence is composed of Jon Lagman a.k.a. aGuLabjr, Kevin So a.k.a. kobeLAlakers, and Kenneth So a.k.a. Practsim.

Tito Chavez, Netopia vice president for Marketing and Sales, and Erwin Cruz, Netopia cluster manager for the area, were on hand for the awarding of prizes to the winners.

“We support our communities; this includes our gamers. In fact we have a lot lined up for them and our other customers this year. Though we cannot divulge our plans yet,” Chavez said.

Hector Sagrado, Level Up! brand manager for FreeStyle, was there with his community managers to handle the event. “Nagulat kami sa dami ng mga nag-register,” Sagrado said. “May mga galing pa ng Valenzuela, and we even have a team na may lady player.”

Team Just Play, which made it to the final four, was the team that Sagrado was talking about. Roselle Isip, 26, was the player in question.

“Wala lang, siya lang ang na-tripan ko na laruin nung may Internet shop kami eh,” Isip explained when asked why she plays FreeStyle. “Try ko lang naman kung mananalo, kung hindi oks lang.”