Harbour Centre dumps Toyota Otis, 98-93
abs-cbnNEWS.com | 11/11/2008 6:43 PM
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Harbour Centre boosted its campaign for a six-peat in the 2009 Philippine Basketball League (PBL) season as it scored another win over old nemesis Toyota Otis, 98-93, during Tuesday’s showdown at the Ynares Sports Arena in Pasig City.
The Batang Pier relied on Far Eastern University's (FEU) Marc Barroca, who scored 15 points as he held his ground against former La Salle spitfire JV Casio.
Barroca also shot 6-of-8 from the field in 20 minutes of action while Nick Stephens hit a go-ahead triple and a layup that pushed the Batang Pier's lead to 85-80 with 5:47 left.
The come-backing Stephens, who last played for Harbour two years back, came off the bench to score nine points in 12 minutes of action.
Harbour Centre now has a 2-0 win loss card, showing that it remains a strong contender for the finals despite being a rookie laden-team.
"Everybody just played well," said Harbour Centre head coach Jorge Gallent. "I told them that they should help together as a team and it worked.
Although ahead by eight, the Batang Pier nearly saw their eight-point lead slip away when James Mangahas converted a basket with one minute left off a foul by Reed Juntilla that cut the deficit to 96-93.
After Barroca was called for double-dribbling with 36 seconds left, the Sparks had a chance to tie the count but Patrick Cabahug's 3-point shot went airball with16.7 ticks remaining.
Cabahug's bungled shot was Toyota's 12th missed triple in 15 attempts in the second half after making 5 of 10 tries in the first 20 minutes.
"They were hitting their shots in the first half so we went man-to-man in the second half," Gallent said. "We also play good interior defense because we were getting killed by their big men."
Rico Maierhofer made 13 points on 4-for-8 shooting together with seven rebounds, Juntilla also scored 13 along with three rebounds and three assists in 25 minutes, and Benedict Fernandez scored 10 off the bench.
Harbour will take a one-week break as six of its players are set to leave for Cagayan de Oro City today to banner FEU in the Philippine Collegiate Championship zonal phase.
