Monday, May 01, 2006
Almacin leads Mantawi past Talisay-WNC
TALISAY City – Red-hot Doroteo Almacin sparked a fierce endgame assault to vault the Mantawi Traders to an 80-73 victory over host West Negros College Mustangs and bolster their semifinal chances in the ML Kwarta Padala Mindanao Visayas Basketball Association at the Talisay City Gym in Negros Occidental.
Almacin had an almost flawless outside shooting to finish with 10 of his personal-best 27 points in the payoff period, as the Traders evened their win-loss record to 3-3 in the league backed by ML Kwarta Padala, Cokaliong Shipping Lines, Nature’s Spring Drinking Water, Molten, Panasonic and Sulpicio Lines.
Intangibles
It was practically an all-Almacin show with no other Trader finishing in twin digits except for Randy Sevilla, who contributed 11 markers. Although Rino Berame, Joseph Guangco and Kim Calo though made their presence felt on the intangible facets of the game aside from combining for 27 points.
It was a completely different story compared to their first encounter where Mantawi raced to a 33-2 lead, as this time around, the Traders could only muster a narrow 33-30 edge at the end of the first half.
The reigning National Students champions, Mustangs, egged on by the fervent cheers of their hometown fans, fought back in the third canto, 27-21, to gain a three-point headway, 57-54, entering the final period.
However, the Traders, with Almacin on the firing end, unleashed a sizzling 26-16 rally in the windup to become the third team in the Visayas Division to sweep the Mustangs.
Missing link
Vengie Vergara topped West Negros with 27 points, while Stanley Tizon added 12 markers. The missing link was scoring machine Ely Olarte, who was handcuffed to a season-low 12 markers as the Mustangs crashed to their fourth straight defeat in as many games.
As of this writing, the Traders were still slugging it out against the winless Toyota-Iloilo Warriors (0-5) at the University of San Agustin Gym in Iloilo City, while Mindanao Division top-seed Iligan City and fourth-seed Montaña Pawnshop-Davao began Game 1 of their best-of-three Mindanao Division semifinal series at the MSU-IIT Gym.
Mantawi (80) – Almacin 27, Sevilla 11, Berame 9, Guangco 9, Calo 8, Jueves 6, Akad 6, Pepito 2, Garcia 2. West Negros (73) – Vergara 21, Tizon 12, Olarte 12, Deocadis 9, Espinosa 7, Miravalles 7, Laurenio 3, Quilantang 2. Quarterscores: 18-15, 33-30, 54-57, 80-73.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (May 1, 2006 issue)
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