Clay, Flowers key Lakers’ big romp

CABANATUAN CITY – Fil-Ams Chris Clay and Jeffrey Flowers spelled double trouble as the FedEx Laguna Lakers repeated over the Nueva Ecija Patriots, 110-83, yesterday in the MBA Second Phase at the Araullo Gym here.

Clay, the league’s most prolific scorer, fired 51 points, barely missing the league all-time high of 52 set by teammate Biboy Simon in 1998. He was able to eclipse Simon’s freethrow mark (18 for 18), however, by sinking all of his 22 tries.

Flowers, on the other hand, grabbed 25 rebounds to smash Romel Adducul’s 24 boards as the Lakers dominated the paint, 68-52.

Barely ahead at 48-46, the Lakers fired 14 points to pad their lead and then followed it up with a 9-4 tear to take the fight out of the Patriots, 71-48, with less than four minutes to go in the period.

FedEx, Laguna just coasted along to tally their fourth straight victory from a 6-win, 3-loss slate in the Northern Conference, Nueva Ecija which also bowed to FedEx Laguna (109-66) in their encounter, suffered its seventh straight defeat after winning its first two games.