Sta. Lucia Realty barged into the quarterfinals as they surged to a 94-88 win against Coca-Cola in their knockout wildcard match in the 2008-09 Motolite-PBA Fiesta Conference Friday night at the Araneta Coliseum.

Anthony Johnson fired a career-high 42 points and a conference-high 24 rebounds, 11 on the offensive end, as the Realtors forged a collision with Burger King in the best-of-three quarterfinal series.

“He’s really one of the best imports now. He played very well tonight as he did not want to disappoint the team. And so we overcame this big challenge by Coca-Cola,” said Sta. Lucia mentor Boyet Fernandez who also drew 16 points from Ryan Reyes.

“But my hats off really to my players. They really followed the game plan, which was to stop Asi (Taulava) and concentrate their defense as well on (James) Penny,” he added.              

Johnson stepped up in the absence of MVP Kelly Williams, carrying the scoring load for the team as the locals defended the taller frontline of the Tigers led by James Penny and Asi Taulava.

Penny managed to score 33 points and grabbed 17 rebounds but Taulava was clamped down to 15 points.

Purefoods survive TNT

In the second game, Purefoods Tender Juicy held off Talk ‘N Text’s rally to post a thrilling 126-123 double overtime win and enter the quarterfinal phase against Rain or Shine.

Kerby Raymundo scored with 33 points, the biggest of which was his three-pointer that locked the game in the first overtime at 100-all. Raymundo was actually fouled by Mark Cardona but failed to sink the charity shot.

James Yap and Roger Yap drained four straight points to give the Giants a 124-123 lead with just 58 seconds left. TNT sued for a timeout but Ranidel de Ocampo was called for an offensive foul off Don Allado.

Purefoods appeared to head straight on for the win after leading 114-102 but Renren Ritualo hit three-straight bombers in the rainbow territory to tie the count at 112-112 with just 28.7 seconds.

After James Yap missed in the next play, Rashard Bell muffed a potential-game winning three that sent the game into its second sudden death.

Bell top scored the Tropang Texters with 29 points while Cardona chipped in 23. Jimmy Alapag and Ali Peek recorded 17 and 16 markers respectively for Taln ‘N Text.