Alab pounces Formosa to nab first ABL win

Alab Pilipinas is, at long last, on the board in the 2017-2018 Asean Basketball League.

The Filipinos turned in their best performance thus far in the tournament to take down newcomer Formosa, 78-61, right in its home court at the Changhua Stadium in Taiwan on Saturday.

Ray Parks Jr. is continuing to look like his real self and had 12 points, 10 rebounds, three assists, two blocks, and one steal in this one.

He had much help from American reinforcement Reggie Okosa who posted a 19point, 19-rebound double-double as well as Josh Urbiztondo who had 12 points, seven assists, and six rebounds to his name.

Rico Maierhofer and Lo Domingo also played big with seven and six points, respectively.

With different players having their strongest showings in the season, the Philippines finally barged into the win column after going winless in two games against defending champion Hong Kong and semifinalist Singapore.

The rest of the team was also on-point as seven different players took part in the decisive 23-9 run that turned a three-point lead in the third into a 68-51 advantage in the fourth.

Okosa capped off that decisive run with a putback dunk of a Robby Celiz miss – showing, for one game at least, that he can lead the team to victory with an injured Ivan Johnson on the mend. —