Blackwater defense shines in 81-60 rout of Café France

THE BLACKWATER Sports leaned on their fantastic defense to blow the wind out from the sails of the Café France Bakers and win, 81-60, in the PBA D-League Aspirants Cup at the Ynares Sports Arena in Pasig City.

Point guard Jeric Fortuna scored 11 of his game-high 13 points in the opening canto while the Elite played great defense for most of the game to hack out the easy win.

The writing was on the wall as early as the first stanza, which Blackwater ended with a 19-2 run that gave them a 24-10 lead.

The Bakers were coming off an upset win over the mighty NLEX Road Warriors but could not sustain their momentum.

The Road Warriors, on the other hand, finished the elimination round with an 85-74 win over the Cebuana Lhuillier Gems.

NLEX was led by the 15 of former UAAP MVP RR Garcia while Garvo Lanete scored 14 points and Ian Sanggalang added 10 for the defending champions, who finished the elims with a 9-1 (win-loss) record and locked their spot in the semifinal.

Raymund Aguilar tallied 17 points and Jopher Custodio added 13 for the Gems, who pulled within 65-66 early in the fourth but faltered the rest of the way. The Gems fell to 3-4

Their fifth win in seven games shove Blackwater Sports into a second place tie with Big Chill and a chance for an outright semifinal berth that awaits the top two teams of the eliminations.

Kevin Ferrer scored 11 points, Gio Ciriacruz contributed 10 and Justine Chua had three blocks for the Elite./Correspondent Jonas Panerio