There are no more unbeaten left in the Next5Hoops Corporate Recreational Division after last Saturday’s thrilling games at Enderun Colleges.
Emerson Finance blemished Ingram Micro’s erstwhile clean slate with a 63-55 victory.
Taking full advantage of Ingram Micro’s sloppy play, Emerson Finance ran the floor and took full control of the game, 59-47, with over three minutes left to play, thanks to a 10-to-nothing run. They improved to 5-2.
Kevin Martinez paced Emerson Finance’s balanced scoring with 12 points including three of his team’s 14 steals while Ronald Libunao added 11 markers off the bench.
Ingram Micro, who went six games before meeting its match, was caught on a bad day with 28 turnovers.
Medel Dela Torre and Aries Parucha combined for 34 points for Ingram Micro, which still leads the pack with a 6-1 card.
Artesyn tied with Ingram Micro at the top after a 63-51 win over undermanned Cement Mixers in the other game.
Shrugging off a slow start, Artesyn banked on a 17-6 third quarter run to break the game wide open, leading by as much as 16, 60-44, with 2:27 left to play.
John Apacible was the high-point man for Artesyn with 17 points including three triples while Jay-R Aguilar and Roberto Carlos added 13 and 11 points, respectively.
Despite fielding in only six players, Cement Mixers even led by 8 in the first half largely behind the efforts of Martin Tombucon and Bernie Beluan who had 15 points apiece.
Cement Mixers dropped to 3-3 to remain in the bottom half of the tournament.
SCMC-ARA, meanwhile, kept its hold of the fourth place after beating Emerson Network, 61-52.
SCMC-ARA doused Emerson Network’s hot shooting with an overall game, getting 34 points inside the paint and 19 off the fastbreak, for its fourth win.
Christopher Frias and Mark Ramilo led SCMC-ARA’s charge with 15 points each with the latter adding 10 rebounds and five assists. Prince De Asis added 12 points.
Emerson Network failed to sustain its strong start where it led by as much as 15, only to trail by 14 late in the third quarter.
Alex Dizon turned in 16 points and six rebounds along with three steals for Emerson Network, which dropped to 1-6.
Solar Entertainment also pushed Nexus Technologies further down into the cellar with a 58-54 nipping in overtime.
The duo of Paulo Fernandez and Nomar Santiago did the work for Solar with 18 and 16 points, respectively, and 17 rebounds combined.
Fernandez nailed back to back triples to give Solar a 52-46 lead with under 3 minutes in OT which served as the team’s buffer until the final buzzer.
Despite getting beat in the rebounding (58-43), points off turnovers (14-9) and second chance points (17-6), Solar found a way to bring home its second win.
Jennifer Maximo had 20 points and 10 rebounds which went down the drain as Nexus Technologies slid to 0-7.
