CJ Perez of San Miguel Beer gets going with 23 points, including two back-breaking four-pointers. Photo by Ernie Sarmiento
San Miguel back on track
CJ Perez scored 23 points, including two back-breaking four-pointers as San Miguel Beer regained its winning ways with a wire-to-wire 104-93 victory over Barangay Ginebra in the PBA Philippine Cup at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
Don Trollano, June Mar Fajardo, Jericho Cruz, Juami Tiongson and Marcio Lassiter also stepped up in a big way as the Beermen bounced back from 95-98 defeat to Magnolia with a dominant perfromance against Ginebra.
Trollano finished with 19 points, Fajardo added a doible double of 18 points and 12 rebounds, Cruz contributed 11 points and Tiongson and Lassiter had 10 points apiece for the Beermen, who led by as many as 23 points enroute to their third win in four matches.
The Leo Austria-mentored Beermen connected on 51.9 percent field goal percentage, compared to Ginebra’s 42.5 percent.
Troy Rosario paced Ginebra with 24 points and eight rebounds, followed by Stephen Holt and Jamie Malonzo, who had 16 points each.
Japeth Aguilar, who erupted with 30 points in Ginebra’s 101-80 win over Terrafirma in their conference debutlast Wednesday, manage donly 12 points.
Earlier, Sedrick Barefield finished with 20 points as Blackwater defeated NorthPort, 120-98, to barge into the win column after two losses.
The Bossing outscored the Batang Pier, 40-27, in the third quarter to turn a close contest into a rout.
Christian David finished with 19 points while RK Ilagan, Richard Escoto, BJ Andrade and Troy Mallilin each had 10 points in Blackwater’s victory.
Joshua Munzon topscored with 27 points and William Navarro notched a third straight double-double of 24 points and 11 rebounds for the Batang Pier.
But NorthPort’s main gunner, Arvin Tolentino, struggled with only 15 points on a dismal 6-of-17 shooting from the field.
The Best Player of the last Commissioner’s Cup also committieda game-high four turnovers in his return from a one-game absence due to a hip injury.
“We got our butts kicked a bit in the first two games, so we wanted to take advantage of the 12 days in-between games,” said Blackwater coach Jeffrey Cariaso.
“For the most part it wasn’t perfect at practice, a lot of challenges. But the guys never stopped working hard. So the simple focus is go back to the drawing board and push more, get better,” added Cariaso.
The scores :
First game
Blackwater (120) — Barefield 20, David 19, Ilagan 17, Escoto 15, Andrade 14, Mallilin 10, Ayonayon 9, Guinto 7, Tungcab 5, Chua 2, Tratter 2, Casio 0.
NorthPort (98) — Munzon 27, Navarro 24, Tolentino 15, Bulanadi 12, Jalalon 7, Onwubere 6, Cuntapay 3, Flores 3, Yu 1, Nelle 0, Kwekuteye 0, Taha 0.
Quarterscores: 20-22, 48-47, 88-74, 120-98.
Second game
San Miguel (104) — Perez 23, Trollano 19, Fajardo 18, Cruz 11, Tiongson 10, Lassiter 10, Rosales 8, Calma 4, Teng 1, Brondial 0, Cahilig 0, Tautuaa 0, Ross 0.
Ginebra (93) — – Rosario 24, Holt 16, Malonzo 16, Thompson 14, J. Aguilar 12, Abarrientos 6, Pinto 3, Ahanmisi 2, Cu 0, R. Aguilar 0, Adamos 0.
Quarterscores: 25-11, 48-30, 83-65, 104-93.
Games Sunday:
(Ynares Center)
5 p.m. — Rain or Shine vs. Meralco
7:30 p.m. — TNT vs. Converge
