Raging Bulls stomp on Dragons

Import Adam Parada played limited minutes but it hardly mattered as Red Bull staged an early breakaway and coasted to a 109-88 victory over the Welcoat Dragons in the Smart PBA Fiesta Conference at the Araneta Coliseum last night.

Working superbly on both ends of the court, the Bulls erected an 18-point spread right in the opening quarter and simply rode the momentum for the decisive win.

Breaking the back of Welcoat even before the final half, coach Yeng Guiao was able to give all his players quality minutes except Mark Andaya whom he kept on the bench for coming late on their call time.

“We put it together on both ends of the court. We had a good start, built our confidence high right away and went into a sort of a zone throughout,” said Guiao.

“We came mentally prepared to play Welcoat in a tough game since they’d won three of their last four games,” added Guiao whose chargers finished the first half of their elimination-round stint with six wins against three losses.

The Dragons hit the halfway point of their own elims campaign at 3-6, beaten by the Bulls with 18 triples on a remarkable 51.4-percent shooting.

Warren Ybanez, Mick Pennisi and Mike Hrabak tossed in four apiece while Cyrus Baguio, Leo Najorda, Paolo Bugia and Celino Cruz combined for the rest of their 18 treys – tying the league second most number of triples in a game recorded by Presto twice (1989 and 1991).

Talk n Text has just set a new record of 23 triples earlier this conference.

Baguio went 2-of-2 from the three-point area and 4-of-4 from the two-point zone while Ybanez converted all of his three three-point attempts as they starred in Red Bull’s early onslaught on the way to a 36-22 lead at the end of the first quarter.

Parada contributed 12 points and six rebounds as they took the half at 59-37 then the 7-foot-1 Mexican behemoth spent most of the second half just cheering on his teammates from the bench. He sat out the last 16 minutes of the game.

“We took the opportunity to give Adam some rest. It could well help him in the long run of the conference,” said Guiao.