The Beermen bounced back from their first loss in the last 10 games, a 91-84 victory over Sta. Lucia at the Ormoc Superdome in Ormoc giving them back the solo lead in the elimination and a sort of inside track in the race for one of two outright Final Four berths.

San Miguel, which saw a nine-game winning streak come to an end with a 90-104 loss to sister team Barangay Ginebra, found company at the top after a long, long while Friday night when Talk ‘N Text hammered Air21 for a 126-100 victory at the Ninoy Aquino Stadium.

Sta. Lucia caught the Beermen with their spirits down, but really didn’t have enough firepower to turn the tables on San Miguel, which regained the lead with an 11-2 card.

The Realtors thus dropped to 4-8 with their third straight loss, out of the automatic quarterfinal race and with dampened spirits after losing Kelly Williams and Ryan Reyes to a lopsided trade with the Tropang Texters.

“We’re very thankful to God that despite playing poorly, we were able to win,” San Miguel coach Siot Tanquingcen said. “Hopefully we can clean up our acts for the next game, which will be against Derby Ace.

“They (Llamados) played a heck of a game yesterday (Friday),” he added. “They will be very tough to beat, especially if we play this way again.” The heck of a game Tanquingcen talked about was a 99-97 loss by Derby Ace to Alaska, where James Yap showed no ill effects of a previously hurting left knee to forge overtime and almost power the Llamados to victory.

Derby Ace slipped into a fourth place tie with the Aces with the loss at 7-5, but more importantly, the Llamados played the type of game they wanted going into a crucial grind with San Miguel later this week.

“It’s going to be a real challenge playing them and James Yap,” Tanquingcen said, not really wanting to talk about the game against Sta. Lucia anymore.

Gabriel Freeman led the Beermen with 22 points and surprisingly, only three players were in twin digits for Tanquingcen with Jay Washington adding 18 and Alex Cabagnot chipping in 10.

With their all-star roster, it was also surprising that Tanquingcen needed to dig very deep in his bench, calling upon 39-year-old warrior Olsen Racela to finish the game.

Racela proved up to the task, finishing with five points, including the dagger triple with 14.1 seconds left which gave the Beermen a safe lead and eventually rounded out scoring.

Anthony Johnson paced the Realtors with 30 markers and Pong Escobal, who was included in the Williams trade, shot 14.

On Friday, the Texters were simply unrelenting against the Express as they blew the game open early and played with sustained fire the rest of the way.

Talk ‘N Text led by as many as 31 points several times and every man that coach Chot Reyes plucked out of the bench played with gusto. Kelly Williams led the Texters with 26 points while Shawn Daniels added 20 and 18 rebounds.

And with his team playing at a very high level, Reyes, naturally, is savoring every minute of it. But he knows his job is just about starting.

“Right now, my biggest worry is complacency,” Reyes told scribes. “Teams that have runs like this one tend to be complacent. That’s why I am not even talking about the streak with the team.” That win enabled the Texters to tie San Miguel not only for the lead temporarily, but also match the Beermen’s nine-game winning run – the longest this season – after shooting the most points by any team for the year.

Talk ‘N Text was in such fine form that the Texters were able to reach 100 points by the end of the third period and take a 25-point lead into the fourth which the Express didn’t even come close to threatening.