MANILA, 2 June 2008 — Take a bow Jojo Duncil, for you’ve just welcomed yourself to the big time.
The rookie out of Santo Tomas yesterday did a lot of the things Red Bull needed on both ends leading to an 86-82 decision of crowd-darling Barangay Ginebra that put the Barako back in the Fiesta Cup hunt at the Araneta Coliseum.
Duncil dropped a career-high 18 points and shackled Jay-Jay Helterbrand no end as the Barako, after three straight defeats, finally won one and claimed at least a share of second place after improving to 8-5.
Ginebra played without the injured Mark Caguioa and almost pulled this one out of the fire, as Chris Alexander scattered 27 points and had 29 rebounds to win his match-up with Adam Parada. But the Gin Kings still lost for the first time in four games and eighth in 12 outings overall, when Duncil hit a charity with 4.2 seconds left that sealed the win, which, more importantly, put Red Bull back in contention for an outright semifinal slot.
“It’s good to finally break the losing streak,” Red Bull coach Yeng Guiao told reporters later.
“His game is tailor fit for Red Bull,” Guiao added of his prized off-guard, who was neglected in the Draft and was picked by the team as the 16th selection overall despite a stellar collegiate career with the Growling Tigers in the UAAP and Harbor Center in the PBL. Red Bull now trails league-leading Coca-Cola by just half-a-game, the Tigers being at 8-4, even as Magnolia climbed to an even 6-6 slate Saturday night with an 84-82 upset Talk ‘N Text. Junthy Valenzuela played against his former team for the first time and almost did the job for the Kings. Valenzuela scored 15 points, while Helterbrand tossed in 18, which could have been a lot more if not for the effective defensive job turned in by the 6-foot Duncil. Parada, regarded as the yardstick among reinforcements here, had 20 points, 23 rebounds and four blocks. But even though he lost out in the statistics to Alexander, it was clear that he got his teammates more involved.
Coming into last night’s game, Red Bull lost to Alaska , Coca-Cola and Air21 by giving up totals in the high-100s.
Last night, with the exception of Ginebra making the first four points, Red Bull was in complete command, going toe-to-toe with the Kings in their running game to take a 72-58 lead into the fourth period before encountering some trouble in the stretch. Valenzuela hit consecutive triples that pushed the Kings to within 83-79 with 1:06 left before Warren Ybanez sank two free throws and the Gin Kings missed four consecutive three-pointers .
In Puerto Princesa Saturday night, he Beverage Masters were without the injured Danny Seigle and Dondon Hontiveros, relying on Tugade for the game-winning jumper that capped a 29-point performance, 21 of them coming in the second half. It would have been another bitter defeat for Magnolia had things not turned out the way they did, as the Beverage Masters lost an 18-point first half lead and had to out-steady the Phone Pals in the stretch to win.
Talk ‘N Text dropped to solo fourth at 7-5.
