MANILA: Just when Petron Blaze was about to drop into an emotional abyss, the Boosters landed themselves a big fish.
Playing hard and showing a lot of heart, the Boosters snapped a three-game losing streak last night by stopping Rain or Shine, 96-86, to get back in the PBA Philippine Cup groove at the Araneta Coliseum.
“Because of that (three-game losing streak), you start to doubt yourself,” coach Olsen Racela told reporters. “It feels good to finally win. We needed this badly, not only for the standings, but for our confidence.”
Chris Lutz came off the bench to fire 19 points and Arwind Santos had a hot start to finish with 16 as the Boosters led by as many as 24 points in the third quarter before rising to 4-6 overall.
The loss was the first in three games for the Elasto Painters, who dropped to 6-3 overall and missed gaining a share of the lead with idle defending champion Talk ‘N Text.
Jay Washington added 14 markers and three more were in twin digits for Racela, whose personal record as the solo head coach of the Boosters improved to 2-3.
Former two-time MVP Danny Ildefonso, the face of the Petron franchise when it was the dominant force from the late 1990s, was the epitome of how determined the Boosters were last night.
The 6-foot-5 center who is undoubtedly in the final stage of his career played despite a dislocated shoulder and pumped up the spirits of his teammates.
“Like a true professional and a true friend, Danny I gave us invaluable help out there just by suiting up,” Racela said of Ildefonso, who would most likely go under the knife in the next few days and could be out for at least five months.
Petron held the Painters to just five points in the first 10 minutes of the third period and opened up several commanding leads as Lutz shot eight of his total and Marcio Lassiter seven of his 12 in the period.
The Painters clawed to within nine with under five minutes left in the fourth period, but were clearly winded after giving gallant chase.
Meanwhile, Air21 notched a third straight win earlier in the night by nipping Alaska, 104-103 after the Express got 21 points from Nino Canaleta and the winning jumper from Mark Isip with 6.1 seconds remaining.
The Express quietly improved to 4-5 and are now in the middle of the pack even as Alaska lost for the third straight time and dropped to 5-4.
Alaska got 24 points from Mac Baracael and 17 points and 10 rebounds from rookie Calvin Abueva, who battled foul trouble all night and played just a total of 22 minutes.
The Aces actually blew two shots inside the final 6.1 seconds, with Mike Cortez forcing JV Casio to throw up an airball and Abueva failing to find the target after chasing down Casio’s miss.
Air21 posted leads of as many as 17 points and seemed headed to an easy win until Abueva returned late in the fourth quarter and gave it his all, even completing a rare four-point play that was the highlight of an Alaska spurt that had the Aces taking a 103-102 lead with 23.2 seconds left.
“They didn’t quit,” Express coach Franz Pumaren said of Alaska. “And we relaxed a little bit. Good thing that we were still able to regroup.”
Petron Blaze scores big win over Rain or Shine
