Rain or Shine vents its wrath on hapless Barako Bull

Rain or Shine vents its wrath on hapless Barako Bull

Rain or Shine 98 vs. Barako Bull 86

by rick olivares with pic by tunyng penaranda

October 31, 2010

Araneta Coliseum

If there was turmoil within the Rain or Shine camp, they took it out on the hapless Barako Bull Energy Boosters from the get-go with a 98-86 win.

After two consecutive loses --  87-79 to Meralco and 90-73 to Barangay Ginebra – word filtered out how the Elasto Painters Solomon Mercado was disenchanted with head coach Caloy Garcia.

Mercado was benched for most of the second half in that crushing loss to Ginebra and he later engaged Garcia in a heated exchange post-game. Mercado was said to have uttered “trade me or fire him (Garcia)” during the verbal sparring.

The Rain or Shine head coach admitted to being late for all but five minutes of the last team practice prior to their match with Barako Bull as he and Mercado sat down with team management to discuss the situation. “I think this happens to every team. It’s healthy that thing like this happen.” Garcia said the incident was all behind and that they were looking forward to moving on. But it was obvious during the game that Mercado wouldn’t make eye contact or slap his coach’s hand on his way out for a breather.

But that didn’t stop the Elasto Painters from posting their best over-all effort from start to finish in the ongoing Philippine Cup.

Rain or Shine drew superb performances from just about every player who checked into the game. Mercado dished and drove in the first quarter as he deferred to center Jay-R Reyes scored 16 first half points on a variety of jump hooks, drop steps and layups to fluster counterpart Mark Isip who at times was the lone Energy Booster keeping his team afloat.

Jeffrei Chan, broke out of his scoring slump by adding 11 points, many coming from incredible drives and double pump layups that helped pad his side’s lead in the first half. In two of Rain or Shine’s three wins (in seven matches), the Elasto Painters cruise to a win when the former FEU Tamaraws hits for double figures. He scored 19 against Air21 in his team’s second game of the season. Chan is averaging 11.6 points in RoS’s wins while he manages 6.0 points in the loses.

In the third quarter, it was Mercado’s turn to shoulder the load as he scored 13 points to hold the Energy Boosters at bay. The third year point guard out of Biola University in Los Angeles, California finished with a conference best of 21 points while pulling down four caroms and dishing off for three dimes.

The Elasto Painters then coasted to their third victory in seven games 98-86.

Isip scored a team high of 29 points while Reed Juntilla added 15. Seldom used Ken Bono added 10 while rookie Hans Thiele who averaged 11 points and 11 rebounds in his first three games didn’t score a point and picked up only four boards. In his three game slump, the rookie out of the University of the East had averaged 4.3 points and 6.6 rebounds.

“He will get better,” said Barako head coach Junel Baculi of Thiele as his team absorbed their fourth defeat in six games.  

Rain or Shine 98 – Mercado 21, Reyes 20, Chan 11, Rodriguez 10, Norwood 8, Araña 8, Tang 6, Cruz 5, Vanlandingham 3, Kramer 2, Bugia 2, Ferriols 2, Jazul 0, Ibañes 0

Barako Bull 86 – Isip 29, Juntilla 15, Bono 10, Hubalde 9, Salvacion 5, Wainwright 5, Yee 5, Andaya 3, Cruz 2, Dimaunahan 2, Duncil 1, Thiele 0, Alonzo 0