ROS earns right to challenge TNT

ANTIPOLO, Philippines — Rain or Shine kept the back-and-forth trend of its best-of-five duel with Magnolia going until the end. And in doing so, the Elasto Painters claimed the disputed semifinal ticket.

With Andrei Caracut, Adrian Nocum, Keith Datu and Aaron Fuller making big plays in winning time, ROS drove the dagger on Magnolia in the quarterfinal sudden death, 113-103, to march into the PBA Governors’ Cup Final Four last night at the Ynares Center here.

The Elasto Painters put the finishing touches to the stirring clincher with a 28-20 closing barrage that sealed the deal for their hard-earned 3-2 series triumph and a date with defending champion TNT.

Yeng Guiao’s young but brave charges made it back-to-back appearances in the semis, where they will now go up against the seasoned Tropang Giga in a showdown featuring the top teams of the group phase.

“Proud ako as they competed and fought it out and hindi sila bumigay under pressure. It’s the fighting heart that these guys showed,” said Guiao of his troops, who didn’t fold up despite facing an early 12-point deficit and also coming off a 29-point blowout in the previous match.

The Elasto Painters survived a fiercely-fought race-to-three series where they traded wins – ROS in the odd-numbered matches, 109-105 in Game 1 and 111-106 (overtime) in Game 3 and Magnolia in the even-numbered ones, 121-69 in Game 2 and 129-100 in Game 4.

“It’s an advantage that we won the first game because nag-alternate ang results ng sumunod na laro. After you win the first game, you get to make the adjustments ahead of the other team. So ‘yun lang ‘yung advantage namin. Nakapag-adjust kami,” said Guiao.

Fuller finished with 26 points and nine rebounds to show the way for the semis-bound ROS with Jhonard Clarito (17), Nocum (17), Caracut (14), Santi Santillan (12) and Datu (11) providing tons of support.

Meanwhile, it’s either a reverse sweep for Converge or delayed clincher for San Miguel Beer as they dispute the coveted semis berth tonight also at Ynares.

The FiberXers climbed out of a 0-2 hole by striking twice against SMB to get their best opportunity to make the F4 for the first time since joining the PBA in 2022.

Despite bungling their closeout job twice, the Beermen are grateful for a third chance and intend to make the most out of it.