Crispa avenged its first round defeat
to Toyota with a lopsided victory to cap off the eliminations of the
1976 PBA Second Conference. Their match overshadowed a then-record 75 points by Harry Rogers for 7-Up hours earlier against Fiberlite.
Crispa clobbers Toyota, 123-97
7-Up's Rogers fires 75
By Ding Marcelo
Bulletin Today
Published Wednesday Oct. 27, 1976
Crispa tore Toyota's game to pieces
last night, handing its bitter rival a 123-97 shellacking as the
Denims gained a psychological edge going into tomorrow's start of the
Philippine Basketball Association second conference semifinals at the
Araneta Coliseum.
Some 23,000 spectators were on hand to
witness the massacre as the Denims, smarting from the absence of ace
gunner William Adornado, took control of the game from the second
quarter on to avenge a 98-95 loss to the Comets in the first round.
An unanswered 13-point explosion by
Crispa at the start of the second quarter set the tone of the
evening's one-sided match as the Denims took a 10-point 40-30 lead
from a 27-30 first quarter deficit.
Though the Comets narrowed the gap as
quickly behind Robert Jaworski and Ramon Fernandez, 42-41, the Denims
retaliated swiftly to pull away at the half, 53-45, from where they
were never again threatened.
Crispa's cool and murderous efficiency
was so compelling that Toyota coach Dante Silverio gave up the game
with still six minutes left by pulling out Francis Arnaiz and
Jaworski within second of each other, followed later by Byron “Snake”
Jones.
So fired up was Crispa that three
Filipinos had better scores that the talented Cyrus Mann whose
intimidating control of the boards was even better by the exemplary
performance of William Bunton.
“We played a swell game while the
Comets obviously were in one of their off nights,” said Crispa
coach Baby Dalupan who told his boys not to be complacent as the more
important games lie ahead.
Completely outshadowed by Crispa's
revenge victory over Toyota was Harry Rogers' record-setting 75
point performance as Seven-Up vanquished Fibertlite, 137-134, in the
first game.
Rogers' output erased the two-week-old
record of Carl Bird who sizzled for 73 points when Royal Tru-Orange
outplayed N-Rich, 165-129, last Oct. 12. Rogers had 33 field goals
and nine foul shots.
Fortunato Co typified Crispa's
offensive excellence as he unloaded 25 points, scoring many of them
off difficult situations, while Alfredo Hubalde again ably
pinch-hitting for the injured Adornado, followed him with 18 points.
Bernard Fabiosa added 17 points, most of them in the last quarter
when the Denims took their biggest lead, a 28-pointer at 121-93.
Mann, who claimed he still had to reach
his peak, banged in 15 and pulled down 12 rebounds while Bunton had
10 points aside from a game-high 17 rebounds. Crispa had an overall
44-36 edge against Toyota off the boards.
Crispa's American imports definitely
were better than Toyota's as Jones and Howard Smith hauled in only
seven rebounds apiece while contributing 18 and 6 points,
respectively.
Arnaiz led all Toyota scorers with 19
points.
The defeat was only Toyota's second in the eliminations while the victory was Crispa's 12th in 16 games, the same record held by U-Tex.
Crispa – 123
Co 25
Hubalde 18
Fabiosa 17
Mann 15
P. Cezar 13
Bunton 10
Calilan 9
Guidaben 8
Dionisio 4
Franco 2
Soriano 2
Varela 0
Toyota – 97
Arnaiz 19
Jones 18
Fernandez 16
Acuna 12
Jaworski 12
Segura 6
Smith 6
Cortez 4
Rojas 4
Bauzon 0
Crispa 27 26 31 39 – 123
Toyota 30 15 22 30 – 97
Refs: E. Cruz, F. Santarina
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