SMB rally falls short

MACAU—San Miguel Beer’s frenetic rally fell short on Sunday as the Beermen finished out of the medal in the East Asia Super Leaue: The Terrific 12 after taking a 91-89 loss at the hands of Zhejiang Guangsha Lions at Tap Seac Sports Pavilion here.

The Beermen were behind 86-77 with 1:37 left but slowly chipped away at the lead and came to what turned out as the final score behind Dez Wells’ three-pointer that capped a 12-5 run with 2.6 seconds left.

Wells then nearly stole Cheng Liu’s inbound pass but the ball sailed out of bounds with 0.6 seconds left, leaving the Beermen with practically no time for a game-winning heave.

Already depleted with the absence of June Mar Fajardo and Marcio Lassiter, the Beermen played without supporting center Christian Standhardinger with the 6-foot-8 big man complaining of pain in his left knee.

“It’s the health of the players that played a factor and today we didn’t have Christian if he was here we might have won third place,” said San Miguel coach Leo Austria. “We don’t want to aggravate his injury, because there’s a little bit of fluid.”

Wells finished with 33 points to lead the Beermen, while Lester Prosper had 16 points and 11 boards.

Jinqiu Hu had 31 points and six rebounds to lead the Lions.