JEDDAH, 16 November — Al-Mabani unraveled an ace off their sleeves en route to a rout of D’Strykers, a whopping 101-65 victory for coach Ed Diaz whose team became a menacing force to reckon with overnight as six-foot-two Edwin Gadingan had his maiden appearance here in the western region readily forming a lethal one-two punch with Jason Villanueva. The duo scored 31 and 30 respectively, their combined scores, just four marks off the production of the entire D’Strykers team.
After toiling it out in the basketball courts of Dammam, Gadingan wasted no time in showing the real stuff he is made of as he practically scored at will in the painted area complementing Villanueva in their total domination of D’ Strykers from the outside and in. So telling was Al-Mabani’s stride that once they raced to a twenty-point lead, there was nowhere to go but up the ante to the hilt with Gadingan and Villanueva getting reliable support from Bustamante, Larry Sunga, Carreon and Arnold Perez. So infectious was Gadingan’s presence that even seldom-used Sudanese man-mountain Hadj played an inspired game.
In other games, Fujitec debuted to a rousing 70-55 win over Al-Jomaih with Jong Rapada leading a balanced offense with 27 points followed by Poco, Demetrio and Siazon who nailed 14, 12 and 10. Torres and Balagtas led the losers with 15 and 13. Royal Blood chalked up its first win at the expense of Kudu Foodmasters, 74-68, as Ampoloquio, Rolloda, Balmores and Ahmad combined for 50 points for the victors. Echo dealt a devastating 85-68 defeat of Avalon largely on the effort of Candingan who exploded with 38 markers winning his scoring battle with Joel de la Vega who drilled 27 points. Penaflor, Tacuboy and Aldrin Remigio collected 20, 19 and 18 points helping Sharbatly remain unbeaten in three starts with a 92-79 win over ALJ Hospital. Leal, Dola-ogon made 18 each and Polayopoy added 17 for the losers. Century defeated Lexus, 80-72, behind a 33-14 fourth quarter burst and a balanced scoring effort from their starting unit of Calara, Dola-ogon, Valencia, Estrella and Rapaza. Lexus’ Cruz hit 22 points but was limited to only a basket in the fourth quarter and even with Martin hitting six- treys, they could not put up a decent fight in the endgame. Goody-Basamh, the team of Erick Abrantes started on a winning note besting Prince 81-75 with the indefatigable Centeno pumping 39 points for the winners and Damaso hitting 19 for the losers.
In a very exciting match going down the wire, Toyota Camry teetered on the brink of defeat at the hands of the youthful Al-Hekma squad but got a sigh of relief when Regis bungled an easy lay-up in the dying seconds to win 62-60. Leal paced Camry with 23 points while Belen and Fabros added 16 and 10 while the duo of Hernandez and Regis topscored for Al-Hekma, 17 and 16.
