Rashad Woods may be the import but Stanley Pringle remains as NorthPort’s most important player.
It showed the moment Pringle came back after missing the first three games of the conference.
Minus Pringle, the Batang Pier lost by an average of 24.6 points in their first three games, including a 41-point beating at the hands of the Phoenix Fuel Masters last August 26.
And though NorthPort also dropped its next three outings with Pringle back in tow, the narrow defeats against Barangay Ginebra, Blackwater and TNT could’ve gone either way.
In fact, Woods feels that if Pringle had been around for the Batang Pier at the start of the Governors’ Cup, the team wouldn’t be near the bottom of the standings with only one win to show.
“Of course, it would have been a lot different because even if we had a lot of injuries but if Stanley was there it helps me a lot also,” Woods said of Pringle, who finished with 26 points and seven assists in a 118-101 win over Columbian.
The Batang Pier’s hopes of making the playoffs are bleak at 1-6 but Woods stays positive especially after the team got a much-needed shot in the arm.
“[This win] just shows that we’re not a team that will lose every game and it can help us with our confidence. Confidence is all we need right now,” said Woods, who struggled with only 13 points on 5-of-14 shooting from the field and 10 rebounds.