Converge grits out win no. 2

MANILA, Philippines — It’s been four months but that pain Converge felt from its heartbreaker at the hands of Terrafirma in their last faceoff still stung like hell.

The FiberXers vividly remembered their March 14 Commissioner’s Cup  duel, where they seemed on their way to victory only for the Dyip to play spoiler, wiping out a nine-point deficit and holding them scoreless in overtime for a 111-100 steal.

That defeat then started a five-game skid, which in the end, doomed Converge’s bid to make it to the playoffs.

And so the troops of coach Delta Pineda were doubly motivated to exorcise the ghost of that numbing defeat when they met again in the PBA Governors’ Cup last night at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.

It turned into a grindout in the stretch but the FiberXers gratefully took the 105-103 revenge win over the Dyip for a 2-0 card in Group A.

“Malaking bagay last conference na talo namin sa kanila. Trinabaho namin talaga, binigay namin 100 percent namin dahil sobrang gusto namin bumawi this conference,” said Justin Arana, who banged in 31 points to go with 10 rebounds in their payback mission.

“It’s the same last game namin. Siguro kapag kalaban kami ng Terrafirma, talagang ganado po sila. We had a 16-point lead pero nahabol. Good thing, nalampasan namin ang sumpa ng Terrafirma,” said Pineda.

Juan Gomez de Liaño (19), Justine Baltazar (16-14), Archie Concepcion (13) and MJ Garcia (12) joined the scoring fray as Converge got the job done despite import Jalen Hudson going off-target with two points on a 1-of-14 clip.

Hudson was outplayed by Justin Strings, who produced a 40-11 for Terrafirma (1-2).