With RR Garcia — the team’s leading scorer — out for about two weeks (shoulder), it had looked tougher for the Energy to gather their bearings back.
But, with a team comprised of veterans, Barako Bull rose and showed a better performance as they clipped Star, 101-83, on Sunday to improve to 5-5 in the team standings.
Josh Urbiztondo carried the cudgel for the Energy, tying his season-high stats as he finished with 24 points including 5-for-10 three-point shooting.
“After that loss by a big margin, we talked about playing with a sense of urgency and showing character. We showed character tonight, coming back from a bad loss,” Urbiztondo said.
“We weren’t down on ourselves. We just wanted to come out and be the aggressive (team) tonight.”
The win did not come easy for the Energy, who had trailed by as much as 11 in the third quarter, although the team flashed its resiliency to overcome another tough stretch.
“As veterans, we all got together and we’ve been through this before. The best thing about this is we had an opportunity to (recover) right away. We had two days to bounce back,” Urbiztondo added.
The veteran guard played over 32 minutes on Sunday night, way above his 18 MPG average, and delivered well. With a morale-boosting victory, Urbiztondo hopes the game gives Barako more momentum as they prepare for the next stage.
“RR is one of our top players, scorers, and playmakers. With him out, we gotta have some players step up. We all stepped up tonight. It was a total team effort and hopefully we get momentum heading into the playoffs coming up.”
