Niños rout Stallions, make finals

THE M. Lhuillier Kwarta Padala-Cebu Niños marched to their fourth appearance in the national finals with a masterful 89-79 win over the Treston-Laguna Stallions in Game 2 of the best-of-three semifinal series of the Tournament of the Philippines (TOP) at the Cebu Coliseum last night.

Cebu’s fluid execution of its defense led to 20 fastbreak points that broke the backs of the Stallions.

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The visitors tried some big plays but nothing came out of it and the Niños made life hard for the visiting squad.

Laguna was ahead early in the game but the Niños quickly made it 13-8 with 4:11 left in the first quarter. Cebu then dropped a searing 15-7 run to log a double-digit lead with 51.2 left in the opening canto.

The top seeds continued to execute big plays and Stephen Padilla and Richard Ian Saladaga helped the Niños put up a 23-point lead, 63-40, at 6:43 of the third period.

Laguna made a dash to cut the lead, 69-56, early in the final frame but Padilla and Saladaga brought it back to 78-56 after a quick 9-0 run.

Cebu was ahead by more than 20, 83-62, at the 4:21 mark and coach Raul Alcoseba decided to bring in his bench.

That allowed Laguna to get closer, 87-79, as the Niños failed to score in more than three minutes.

However, the Stallions ran out of time to erase the deficit and the Niños advanced to the Sept. 7 finals.