The Racal Tile Masters displayed dominance over the Topstar Z.C. Mindanao Aguilas in a high scoring affair, 102-83, in the 2016 PBA D-League Foundation Cup Tuesday afternoon at the JCSGO Gym in Cubao, Quezon City.
Topstar waxed hot to start things in the opening frame, quickly erupting to a 13-4 lead behind outputs from JR Cawaling, Dexter Garcia, and RJ Argomino. Racal, however, started to hit their shots, with Jonathan Grey and Philip Paniamogan leading the way. They closed out the quarter lagging only by three, 25-22.
Racal sustained their rhythm in the following quarter, as they outran and outscored their counterparts on both ends of the floor. Through their fluid offense and stifling perimeter defense, the Tile Masters scored 26 points in the second quarter alone to take a huge thirteen-point, 51-38 lead into the halftime break.
Topstar opened the third canto by scoring five quick points to trim their deficit to ten, 53-43, midway into the quarter. But Racal restrained Topstar from inching any closer, generating offense through fastbreaks led by Paniamogan and Raphael Banal to post the biggest lead of the quarter, 70-48, with less than two minutes left. Both teams exchanged baskets until the frame ended, which saw Racal up 74-55.
Both teams executed runs in the final frame, with Racal going first to post the game’s widest gap at 31, 86-55, with 7:45 remaining. The Aguilas sparked a streak of their own to cut down the deficit to thirteen, 90-77, with less than three minutes left in the game. Topstar had chances to trim it further, but Racal’s offensive flow was still going strong through Jonathan Grey and Joseph Terso, as they chipped in points to pull away and coast to the win.
“We still had a poor start in today’s game. The difference lang is we were able to recover and we had more energy in the second quarter,” said coach Caloy Garcia, as Racal improved to a 2-1 slate.
Five Tile Masters led with double figures. Grey led them with 20 points, while Paniamogan contributed 16. Terso had 13, while Dexter Maiquez and Chris Javier added 11 and 10, respectively. Cawaling led Topstar with 22 markers.
The Tile Masters improved their record to 2-1, while the Aguilas went down to 0-3.
The Scores:
Racal (102) – Grey 20, Paniamogan 16, Terso 13, Maiquez 11, Javier 10, Robles 9, Ortuoste 8, Celiz 4, Corpuz 4, Banal 2, Gabawan 1, McCarthy 0.
Topstar-Mindanao (83) – Cawaling 22, Argamino 15, Cabrera 12, Garcia 11, Julkipli 8, Jumao-as 5, Acosta 5, Roño 2, Dadjilul 2, Ignacio 1, Rivera 0, Ongteco 0, Sarangay 0.
