Romeo keeps Batang Pier afloat

GLOBALPORT guard Terrence Romeo continues to explode in a manner recalling his heroics as one of two rookie revelations of the Gilas Pilipinas squad in the Fiba Asia championship in China last month.

After helping the Batang Pier secure a twice-to-beat bonus in the quarterfinal playoffs, Romeo personally delivered the last two victories of what is now a four-game streak that has lifted Globalport to a fourth-running 7-3 win-loss record.

The former Far Eastern University star has averaged a league-leading 29 points in his last four games with a high of 33 against Meralco as he outshot the comebacking and three-point artist Jimmy Alapag down the stretch to boot the Bolts out of contention. He unloaded another 29-point game against Mahindra last Saturday, with his last five points in the last 20 seconds clinching the come-from-behind 118-116 overtime victory over the Enforcers.

Romeo was all the more impressive against Mahindra since he groped for the irons all game long from the three-point area but still kept on firing. He finally came through on his 15th triple attempt to tie the count at 118-all then broke the deadlock himself after a Mahindra miss with a virtual court-to-court drive, time down to 3.2 seconds.

The loss was a bitter pill to swallow for Mahindra, which looked set to clinch the 10th and last qualifying berth over Blackwater by dominating GlobalPort before Stanley Pringle beat the gun to send the game into overtime at 103-all. The Elite then took a 111-105 lead and stayed on top at 116-113 before Romeo ended his scoreless spell from three-point land.

Now at 2-8 behind Blackwater’s 2-7, Mahindra must pray that the Elite drop their game against Star on Friday to pave the way for what will be their knockout duel for the last berth this Sunday.

The Elite had earlier avoided elimination by crushing Barako Bull, 116-92, last Friday with new recruit Carlo Lastimosa firing a career-high 38 points, 17 of them in the last quarter.

Meanwhile, defending champion San Miguel Beer seized at least a playoff slot for one of the two outright semifinal slots reserved for the top two squads at the end of the eliminations after whipping Talk ‘N Text, 97-84, to raise the league’s best record to 9-1.

Alaska and Rain or Shine remain tied for the No. 2 spot at 7-2.

Except for a tie for second and the No. 10 slot, the rest of the deadlocks will be decided via the quotient system.

In the next phase of the playoffs, the No. 3 to the No. 6 teams will enjoy twice-to-beat privileges over the No. 7 up to the No. 10 teams with the survivors joining the top two teams in the semifinals.

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Topnotch golf is up this week with the staging of the Philippine Open for the first time at the Luisita Golf and Country Club course inside Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac, Tarlac.

A field of 128, including 92 foreigners are seeing action in the four-day event beginning Thursday at the Robert Trent Jones Jr. layout. The final leg of this year’s Asian Golf Tour, sponsored by ICTSI, offers a top prize of $60,000 from the total purse of $300,000.

Leading the local challenge are 2011 Asian Tour Order of Merit champion Juvic Pagunsan, Angelo Que, Antonio Lascuña and Miguel Tabuena. The top 32 in the Philippine Golf Tour Order of Merit are also entered.

Although he missed the cut in the Thailand Open last week, the 21-year-old Tabuena is among the early favorites as he holds the Luisita 72-hole record of 22-under he set this year when he won a PGT tour leg there several months ago.