Red Bull Barako outshines STAR five

Red Bull Barako relied heavily on Fil-Am Francis Raushmayer as it downed The Philippine STAR, 96-76, yesterday to keep its flickering Final Four hopes alive in the Coke Light Invitational basketball tournament at the Meralco Gym.

Inspired by the presence of Photokina president Jaime Chua, Raushmayer, who is currently trying out for a slot in the Batang Red Bull team in the PBA, torched the STARmen with 39 points including 17 in a second quarter run that got the Thunder going.

In that scoring rush, Raushmayer was unstoppable as he hit from both inside and out to turn a 20-20 first quarter deadlock to a huge 48-33 upperhand, more than a minute before the break.

Raushmayer slowed down a bit in the third and fourth quarters but the duo of Kirk Collier, Red Bull coach Yeng Guiao’s assistant and trainer, and Jojo Villapando took care of things to finally take the fight away from the host team.

Red Bull thus moved up into a tie at third spot with Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) and CAR Inc. with identical 2-2 records in this tournament organized to foster camaraderie and friendship among the STAR Group’s advertisers and partners.

The STAR, for its part, suffered its first loss after three straight victories to share the lead with PLDT, which played without Talk N Text consultant Bill Bayno but still won over Sunkist, 110-70.

Earlier, CAR Inc. relied on a balanced offensive as it stunned last year’s STAR Friendship League champion RCBC, 115-103, to also stay in contention for a spot in the next round.

Sunkist, which played without its twin tower combination of Norman Black and Bobby Parks for the second game in a row, bowed out of the event after four consecutive setbacks.