Bogs vs. Atoy - The Opening Shot of a Shooting Duel (Sports Weekly, 1980)

Sports Weekly Magazine

August 29-September 5, 1980

 

 

            This, then is it – the long-awaited duel under the bright lights of the Big Dome; something like Gun-fight at the OK Corral, part II, the hardcourt version of the “Shootists.”

 

            The protagonists? Crispa’s Fortunato (Atoy) Co and U/Tex’s William (Bogs) Adornado, once Crispa’s dreaded 1-2 punch but now on opposite sides of the fence as a result of Adornado’s acquisition by U/Tex midway in the last conference of the PBA in a Php 100,000 deal that up to now has continued to spark spirited disputes among local basketball fans.

 

            The current invitationals actually is not the first full-length shootout between the two. They have tangled during the first conference, a league eventually won by Adornado’s team, the Wranglers. But things were different then. For Adornado had the advantage of operating under the cover of U/Tex ‘s two imports whom the Wrangler could field at the same time unlike Atoy who didn’t have the same advantage because Crispa and Toyota could only use their imports one at a time.

 

            So the matchup between the two in the Invitationals is “it” – the even-steven shootout between Bogs and Atoy.

 

            It was Co who got off the first draw as the Jeansmakers went up against Nicholas Stoodley in the opening game of the Invitationals. But apparently still unable to fully get over the slump that hit him in the First Conference. Co could only manage an 18-point performance that was only the fourth best individual score by Crispa, as the Jeansmakers pulled off a 103-99 decision over Stoodley, a team composed of pick-up American players from the U.S. West Coast.

 

            Three days later, in the league’s second playdate, Co and Adornado got to meet head-to-head, shot-for-shot as the Jeansmakers took on the Wranglers.

 

            Co’s team won the “war,” coming from 26 points down to score a 99-97 squeaker over a U/Tex team that folded up in the last quarter, but in the personal battle between Atoy and Bogs, it was Adornado who came out on top. While Adornado was pumping in 25 points in a performance that reminded fans about those days when he was chief hit man of Crispa, Co was a picture of frustration almost all the way as attested by this anemic six-point showing.

 

            It was Atoy’s lowest output this season and it could not have come at a worst time – the night o fhis first face-to-face shootout in the Invitationals with his comebacking former teammate.

 

            But very quickly, Co made up for the comedown by coming up with the night’s high of 30 points in Crispa’s losing game two nights later against the tough Adidas-France selection.

 

            That was red-hot shooting Atoy showed against Adidas and it may well mean that the Fortune Cookie is on his way back as Crispa’s principal local bombardier.

 

            If this were really the case, the performances of Co and Adornado in the remaining games of the Invitationals’ double round robin eliminations could turn into an exciting phase of the Co-Adornado shooting duel.

 

 

 

            In the two rounds of the first conference’s elimination series, Co finished way ahead of Adornado with 19.05 points per game average against Adornado’s 13.75. But the statistical fact remains that in the first round, Bogs was still with Crispa. In this round, he only averaged 6.57 points per game. When he moved over to U/Tex, he averaged 19.33.

 

            In the semifinals, Adornado was clearly the better offensive performer than his old shooting partner.

 

            Thus, as both went into the Invitationals, it was Bogs who seemed on the way up and Co still struggling to shake off his shooting woes.

 

            With his 30-point explosion against Adidas, however, Atoy appears to have regained his old shooting form. With Adornado keeping up his almost flawless performance, it perhaps may be said that the duel is heating up, the “new rivalry” between two former teammates hitting a crucial turn.

 

            As to who will manage to come out on top after it’s all over remains anybody’s guess. One thing is sure though. Atoy, the old king of the hit men in the PBA, is not expected to relinquish his crown without making Bogs work hard. And logically, neither will Co’s whole team.

One More for PBA Book of 'Firsts' (Sports Weekly, 1980)

Sports Weekly Magazine

August 29-September 5, 1980

Peter N. Acosta

 

 

            For a season which pad produced more than its share of unusual occurrences, PBA ’80 came up with yet another as Crispa reached for its third straight victory halfway through the double round eliminations of the Invitationals.

 

            The Jeansmakers, winners of their first two games in the series, didn’t make it, blowing a 114-110 decision to the visiting tall and tough Adidas quintet. It was, however, Crispa’s setback that made this a game that will no doubt go down in the PBA’s book of “firsts” but what happened in the closing minute and a half.

           

            It was a stupefying windup.

           

            Consider these:

 

            With 1:28 left in the game clock and Adidas out front by seven points, 109-102, Adidas playing coach Bill Sweek reacted angrily to a mandatory timeout rule after he had called an injury timeout on George Gooden. This was after an earlier foul call had set up Crispa’s Sylvester Cuyler to a stint on the free throw line.

 

            Claiming that he didn’t call a timeout, Sweek banged the officials’ desk with his palms and then kicked a rule book in the air.

 

            For this outburst, Sweek was slapped with two technical fouls by referee Ting Cruz which Atoy Co, playing one of his best games in the series, converted. After which, Cuyler took his turn on the foul line to sink his two free throws.

 

            With that unusual stint from the free throw line which came on two technical and a regular foul committed on a player in the act of shooting, Crispa brought down Adidas’ lead to three, 109-106.

 

            But although losing its coach who was thrown out of the court by referee Cruz, Adidas refused to crack up. On the next play, when the game was resumed after an uproar sparked by Sweek’s tantrum, Gooden, one of the two shortest men in the Adidas lineup, knocked in a short jumper to give his team a five-point lead, 111-106, the time down to 1:11.

 

            Co pumped in one from the side to again close the gap, and it looked like Crispa had a chance to further narrow down Adidas’ lead when the Shoemakers were forced into a violation of the 25-second-must-shoot rule after Co’s shot.

 

            But when Byron “Snake” Jones missed a forced jumper and the 6’5 Randolph Owens made good a three-point stint after scoring and then converting from the 15-foot line on a foul called on Jones, Adidas had the game on ice.

 

 

 

            It was a numbing finish for a Crispa team which, after a slow start, had taken a nine-point lead at the half and then had gone into the last period with a seven-point margin at 90-83.

 

            A 12-4 flurry in the first four minutes of the fourth sent Adidas out front by two, 96-94, and then by seven twice, the last time when playing Coach Sweek went into that costly tantrum that almost cost Adidas the game.

 

            Earlier, Crispa’s Philip Cezar also caused an uproar when he touched off a brief brawl among some spectators in the ringside seats behind the goal after he had reacted violently against a heckler.

 

            Compared to this, however, Sweek’s outburst was something.

 

            Sweek, of course, had an explanation for it. “I never called a timeout,” he declared. “If that was a local rule, they should have informed me about it earlier.”

 

            He was still fuming when he said, but somehow, his ire at having been ejected seemed to have been saved by his team’s victory on two clutch hits by Gooden and Owens.

 

            One thing he can’t understand though, he said, was how it seems his team almost always get a lot of foul calls from the referees. “It’s always been like this,” he said. “We’re supposed to be the taller team, and yet, we get all the fouls.”

 

            With his clutch jump shot, Gooden, a former draftee of the Detroit Pistons in the NBA upped his evening’s total to 20 points, the highest for Adidas. For Crispa, the top man was Co who finally recorded his first 30-point output in the five-team Invitationals.