The Noahs and FD surge past the Madrazos and the Islanders, win preseason championship game

After a close first quarter in the 2025 Clutch High School Basketball Classic boys varsity preseason championship game, the Father Duenas Memorial School Friars came to life and defeated the John F. Kennedy High School Islanders 74-51 Sunday evening at the University of Guam Calvo Field House in Mangilao. “I’m really proud of this team, from the start of practice all the way to now. We really improved,” said FD sharpshooter Noah Cruz. Cruz, the most dynamic player of the tournament, was named most valuable player. Cruz told The Guam Daily Post that his teammates were responsible for his performance. “Props to all of them. They're the ones that helped me out. They're all a part of it,” he said. In the first eight minutes, the Islanders’ Jordan Madrazo, Josiah Madrazo, Genesis Babauta and Zach Yurko shared the wealth and lit up the scoreboard. But in the second quarter, Friars’ Colin Baker’s and Noah Tenorio’s 3-point shooting heated up, and the storyline changed rapidly. Midway through the second quarter, Baker drained a 3-pointer from the corner and Tenorio, who was left relatively unguarded past the top of the key, nailed his first 3-point shot. As Baker and Tenorio were scoring from deep, the Friars’ Jarrett Ko’s and David Del Carmen’s baskets kept the score in FD’s favor. After the first half, the Friars led by 7 points but that lead was about to bloom further. During the first 16-minute stretch, Cruz’s presence hadn’t been felt. In the third quarter, that changed. With three made shots from 3-point land and having scored 12 of his co-game-high 14 points in the period, the Friars found themselves on the winning end of a runaway basketball game. “We were just playing well as a team,” Cruz said. “The ball somehow got to me, and then I just shot and it went in.” The Friars entered the fourth quarter with an 18-point lead and never looked back. Tenorio, with a size and quickness advantage over Babauta, scored a pair of 3-pointers and made two free throws. Tenorio, who was perfect from the charity stripe and had three blocked shots, finished with a co-game-high 14 points. “The momentum definitely was in our favor, because we made a lot of mistakes in the first half, and we had to just come and take a deep breath and just realize that this is what we need to do to get better and to do our job,” Tenorio said. “The second quarter came, and we focused and implemented what we needed to do.” The Islanders were led by the Madrazo twins and Babauta. The Madrazos finished with co-team-high 11 points each, and Babauta dropped in 10 points. Ever since the Guam Department of Education pulled out of the Independent Interscholastic Athletic Association of Guam and formed its own league a few years ago – the Interscholastic Sports Association – public school and private school teams only competed against each other in preseason and postseason tournaments. Now that the leagues have combined, the Friars and the Islanders will meet again. “I really love that we’re combined now, because I get to go play in gyms that I've never been in before. I get to play against other teams that I've never played before, instead of seeing the same guys over and over again,” Tenorio said.
Courtesy of: postguam.com