Yap sizzles in Purefoods’ overtime win

The Purefoods Chunkee Giants scored amazing back-to-back overtime wins in an incredible weekend in the San Mig PBA Fiesta Cup, stunning the Alaska Milk Aces, 86-84, Friday at the Astrodome then shocking the San Miguel Beermen, 92-90, last night at the Araneta Coliseum.

The Giants won their closely fought match with the Beermen with James Yap stealing off Danny Seigle then scoring on a drive off Rico Hill in the closing seconds of the extra period.

Yap delivered the winning basket even as Marquin Chandler, Kerby Raymundo and Marc Pingris had their own shining moments in their follow-up victory over the Aces that installed the Giants at solo second place in the leader board with a 3-1 win-loss card.

"It’s an incredible weekend for us as we beat two teams which we hadn’t beaten in a long while. We won only our third win in our last 13 games with Alaska and beat San Miguel for the first time in our last eight games," said Purefoods coach Ryan Gregorio.

Chandler survived five early fouls, coming away with 26 points and 13 rebounds although he had some booboos, including an ill-advised three-point attempt with the count tied at 83-all in the closing seconds of regulation play.

But Chandler made up for that unwise move, banging away two crucial baskets in overtime as the Giants moved ahead to stay at 90-87.

Raymundo tallied 21 points, seven rebounds, two assists and the same number of blocks while Pingris, who turned 24 yesterday, came up with his first career double-double game with 11 points and 10 rebounds.

"Regalo ko ito sa sarili ko at regalo ko rin sa nanay ko at mga ka-probinsya ko sa Pangasinan," said Pingris.

"The guys are finding ways to win. I was a virtual spectator in the last few seconds," said Gregorio, who later made special mention of Yap, Raymundo and Pingris.

Gregorio was especially happy with new recruit Pingris, saying the former FedEx forward "is just willing to play his role and he’s giving us a huge lift."

Seigle had a highly-productive game with 30 points but committed a crucial error and missed a three-pointer in the dying seconds as reigning champion San Miguel suffered a third straight defeat.

The Beermen are in their worst start in a conference since beginning the 2003 Reinforced Conference with a 0-5 slate.

San Miguel had a chance to win the game in regulation play but Olsen Racela made an erroneous throw-in intercepted by Pingris with 2.3 seconds left in the clock.

Racela and San Miguel import Rico Hill were seen figuring in a verbal tussle at the buzzer. But the two gave each other a friendly tap as the overtime was about to start.