Leo Factor who finally had to leave the bench in lieu of foul-plagued Jhun Estolas, picked up a foul and basketed his quick jump shot to tie the ball game with three seconds remaining.
However, he missed what could have been the decisive shot for the Xterminators to finally reap the fruit of not losing a single game during the regular season.
So the game was not over yet.
Estolas who determined the offense the whole time and tallied his lowest eight points, has exhausted all his five fouls. Kelvin Fitial who had nine points had to stay out as well leaving Brandon Talania and Freddy Pelisamen carrying the Xterminators together.
Two unnecessary in-bound errors, William Opone’s passing error and a technical foul against Raymond Cadagat sold the Xterminators out.
With the Prospects’ Chris Paul and Mike Wright stretching up the fortress, the Xterminators offensive rebound has gone somewhere. So, every missed shot had serious consequence.
A series of altercations, including that of Opone’s violation heated up and worked favorably with the Prospects.
Cadagat who only had one remaining foul to give up was in the front line of defense and this did not dawn on Pelisamen right away as he handled the offense.
With still three minutes left to the ball game and the Xterminators were down only by four points, Pelisamen who tallied 44 points dodged Cadagat as he charged the basket from the left side.
He missed the shot.
Johnson kept his scoring surge at this junctures and the Xterminators have not gotten rid of Cadagat yet. It occurred only to Pelisamen as instructed by Estolas from the bench but it was too late.
Cadagat preserved the last foul credit and still hitting the basket up to the last few seconds of the game.
The Prospects never trailed even in the first half of the game that rain stalled last Monday.
Scores:
Prospect 117 – Q. Johnson 38, R. Cadagat 27, C. Paul 15, A. Lauron 6, J. Pagarao 6, E. Peredo 6, R. Sanciangco 4, M. Wright 4, D. Aughenbaugh 3, E. Moses 3.
Advance Xterminators 102 – F. Pelisamen 44, P. Muleta 15, J. Guiab 14, K. Fitial 9, J. Estolas 8, G. De Guzman 6, L. Factor 2, G. Gapor 2, B. Talania 2.
Quarterscores: 22-19, 49-38, 72-66, 96-96 OT 117-102
