By Dugout Philippines
MANILA—The Makati Super Crunch cruised to a record win streak while the San Juan Knights continued their rampage in the Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League Datu Cup last Monday night at the Filoil Flying V Centre in San Juan.
Recovering from a cold start, the Super Crunch routed the Quezon City Capitals, 102-78, to tally their 15th straight victory and finish the elimination round with an overall second-best 21-4 record.
The Knights, on the other hand, dumped the Valenzuela Classic, 102-83, behind the 22-point explosion of John Wilson as well as the 10-point contribution of CJ Isit to wind up with a 20-5 mark in the North division, where the Super Crunch are also bracketed.
With John Rey Villanueva and Jeckster Apinan puncturing the hoops, the Super Crunch erased a 10-18 deficit and went on to lead by as many as 30 points, 97-67, before settling down.
Villanueva came through with 20 points while Apinan chipped in 19 as the Super Crunch surpassed the 14-game win run of the Bataan Risers, the overall pacesetter at 21-2 with two games left to play.
The Capitals, who dropped to 11-12, got 15 points from Jay Collado and 14 from Kim Medina.
Makati coach Cholo Villanueva attributed the Super Crunch’s surge to the hard work and determination of his undersized wards.
“We don’t have a John Wilson, a Mac Cardona, or a Reil Cervantes,” said Villanueva, referring to the former pros seeing action for the San Juan Knights and the Manila Stars. “All we have are a bunch of hard workers.”
Valenzuela, which bowed out with a 10-15 slate, got 15 points from Chris de Chavez and 13 each from Floyd Dedicatoria and Ryan Arambulo.
Follow the site on Twitter: @DugoutPH
.JPG)
.jpg)
