LUCENA CITY, Philippines – The host and third seed Quezon Red Oilers claimed the third of five seats in the Smart Liga Pilipinas Conference III Super Leg as they made short work of the visiting eighth seed MP Warriors of GenSan, 86-64, in their Wild Card Round encounter Wednesday at the Quezon Convention Center.
The Red Oilers of Gov. Rafael Nantes and coach Oliver Bunyi raced to an 18-7 lead after the first period as playmaker Robert Labagala set up Jorel Canizares and Luis Palaganas for easy scores and never looked back. The story was the same in the second period as the Warriors continued to struggle, allowing the Red Oilers to pull away further, 38-17.
Guard Christian Gavina then completed a three-point play that erected the Red Oilers’ biggest advantage of the game, 68-37, late in the third period.
From there, the Red Oilers coasted safely to victory. The Warriors of Manny Pacquiao and coach Ramon Pido had hoped to win in order to force a winner-take-all game for a ticket to the Super Leg set for Nov. 22 -29 in Cebu City and sponsored by Smart, Molten, Accel, Calcium-Cee, Gatorade, Air 21 and Burlington.