Magnolia Beverage Masters Basketball Games Updates

GUNNERS LORDY TUGADE & REN-REN RITUALO THRIVE AT CRUNCH TIME: Players of the Week June 16 – 22

In recognition to his contribution in the team's recent win, Lordy Tugade has been named as co-Players of the Week for the period of June 16-22 together with Talk and Text Phone Pals long range bomber Ren-Ren Ritualo.

I guess Lordy Tugade has accepted his role in the team as a reliever to Danny Seigle. However, when called to provide the big lift, he will not hesitate to carry the team on his shoulders.

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Source: PBA.ph
Monday, 23 June 2008

Having ace gunners come in as relievers is a luxury few teams in the Smart PBA Fiesta Conference can boast of.

And when those players come through with clutch points when needed most, then the fruits of the gambit are made much sweeter.

Such were the identical cases for Magnolia Beverage Masters and Talk N Text Phone Pals, which respectively had Lordy Tugade and Ren-Ren Ritualo churning out the much-needed baskets at the crunch and enabling them to fashion morale-boosting wins in the week that was.

Those feats also earned for the players the Smart/Accel- PBA Press Corps’ Co-Players of the Week citations for the period June 16-22.

“He came up big for us at crunch time,” said Magnolia Beverage Masters coach Siot Tanquingcen of Tugade, who was very instrumental in Magnolia Beverage Masters’ 81-77 win over the Coca-Cola Tigers last Friday.

“Yung drives niya to the basket and offensive rebounds show he’s a complete package,” Tanquingcen added of the 6-foot-3 forward, who finished with a team-high 14 points, adding three rebounds and an assist in 20 minutes of off-the-bench action.

The Alaminos, Pangasinan native scored nine of his points in the fourth quarter and all but one of Magnolia Beverage Masters' last seven points, including a tip-in off a Danny Ildefonso miss that pushed them ahead to stay at 78-76.

Equally impressive was Ritualo in TNT’s 102-101 squeaker over Purefoods that snapped the Phone Pals out of a distressing five-game skid.

The Three-point King in the recent All-Star Weekend in Bacolod buried the Giants, not with a triple but with a double-pump jumper from the top of the key in the last 6.4 seconds that turned out to be the deciding basket.

“He’s been working hard on adding more to his basketball game than just the three-point shot and his work paid off,” said TNT coach Chot Reyes. “Good for us.”

In all, the 6-foot shooter scattered 16 points, one rebound, two assists and as many steals in a 23-minute relief job as the Phone Pals moved up to the .500 mark with an 8-8 win-loss record. They also solidified their bid for an outright berth in the playoffs.

Magnolia Beverage Masters, meanwhile, enhanced its bid for an outright semifinals berth as it caught up with Coca-Cola at third place with their similar 9-7 cards, lying behind Air21’s league-leading 10-6 and Red Bull’s 9-6.

Both Tanquingcen and Reyes know more tough work lies ahead.

“This is a good win for us, but we still have yet to achieve anything,” said Tanquingcen, inadvertently echoing Reyes’ sentiments.

With aces like Tugade and Ritualo up their sleeves, both coaches also know their goals are very realizable. (NCo)