Tolentino drills in 51 in hot night

MANILA, Philippines — After yielding the floor to his teammates last time, Arvin Tolentino re-asserted his status as the NorthPort’s premier gunner. In doing so, he authored the most explosive game by a local in the PBA in 20 years.

With his 51-point scorcher, Tolentino sparked the Batang Pier to a 135-109 crushing of Converge for back-to-back wins in the Governors’ Cup at the Ninoy Aquino Stadium last night.

Tolentino, who shot only 10 but with 10 rebounds and nine assists in their 112-93 rout of Terrafirma six days ago, knocked down five triples and made 15 of his 27 attempts from the floor to spike this historic night.

The 6-foot-6 rifleman’s sizzler built around quarterly outputs of 12-10-12-17 shattered the franchise’s all-time scoring record of 50, previously posted by Stanley Pringle back on April 22, 2018.

It also marked the highest tally for a local since Asi Taulava made 51 on May 16, 2004 in leading TNT past Purefoods, 131-105, in a Fiesta Conference showdown.

“Wow!” a smiling Tolentino exclaimed after being informed of his feat.

“We were hot pag-start ng game. I felt na maganda ang tinatakbo ng team especially on defense and in transition. Na-swerte lang na dumating sa akin ang bola at na-shoot ko,” he added.

More important for the former Far Eastern U star, the Batang Pier jacked up their record to 2-1 in Group A.

“I scored 51 but I give credit also to my teammates, who gave their best today and they deserve this,” he said.

Joshua Munzon (19 points and five steals), Jio Jalalon (13), Damie Cuntapay (11) and William Navarro (10) backed Tolentino up as import Venky Jois focused on other things and grabbed 10 rebounds to go with his six points.

NorthPort sent Converge down to 2-2, denying the FiberXers a follow-up to their epic 96-95 comeback W over TNT last time.

Scotty Hopson showed the way for Converge with 24 with Alec Stockton (19), Justin Arana (16) and Deschon Winston (16) sharing offensive load.

Meanwhile, unbeaten Group B leader Rain or Shine eyes its fourth straight win today at 5 p.m. at the NAS against a Phoenix side hoping to climb out of a 0-2 hole with a new reinforcement in Le Bryan Nash.