Sunday, July 13, 2008 Fiesta Cup quarterfinal round opens today
MANILA—The race for the remaining two semifinals slots shifts to high gear as Barangay Ginebra faces Sta. Lucia, while Magnolia meets Coca-Cola today at the start of the best-of-three quarterfinal round of the 2008 Smart-PBA Fiesta Conference at the Cuneta Astrodome.
The winner between Ginebra and Sta. Lucia will advance to the best-of-seven semifinals against Red Bull, while whoever emerge the victor between the Tigers and the Beverage Masters will face Air 21 in the other semis match.
Sta. Lucia, which finished ninth at the end of the double-round eliminations, made it to the quarterfinals by dethroning sixth finisher Alaska, 99-86, in the first round of the wildcard and went on to beat Talk ‘N Text, 111-96, last Friday.
Lee Benson, Kelly Williams, Bitoy Omolon and Joseph Yeo showed a well-oiled offense to enable the Realtors to advance past the wildcard for the first time in the last four stagings of the reinforced Fiesta Conference.
Sentiment
The Tigers and the Beverage Masters clash at 4:30 p.m. then the Realtors and the Kings follow at 6:50 p.m.
But all eyes will not only be to the Realtors as sentiments are also for the Kings, who climbed from the bottom of the team standing to finish in a tie from third to fifth with Magnolia and Coca-Cola with similar 10-8 slates.
Both the Kings and the Realtors split their two meetings in the elimination with Sta. Lucia winning the first, 101-97, last April 12 in Tacloban City but the Kings got back with a 104-112 victory on June 6 at the Cuneta Astrodome.
Coach Boyet Fernandez, however, expressed confidence they can convince the 6-foot-11 Benson to stay on until they can find an able replacement.
Benson, a former convict for drugs in the US, declared that the game against Talk ‘N Text last Friday will be his last because he will be going back to his country.
“We will try to persuade him to stay because we will have no more import if he will leave. But I’m confident we can patch things over whatever. I think we can talk about it,” said Fernandez, who steered the Realtors to their second conference title last March. (FCC)
