By Adrian Stewart Co
After losing 26 straight games, Kobe Paras and the Niigata Albirex BB scored back-to-back wins in the 2021-2022 Japan B.League after an 87-79 beating of Ibaraki Robots on Sunday at the City Hall Plaza Ao-re Nagaoka.
Paras waxed hot in the third quarter, where he dropped all of his nine points after being saddled with foul trouble in the first half, as the Niigata Albirex improved its win-loss record to 4-28.
The former University of the Philippines Fighting Maroon was pivotal of Niigata Albirex in the said quarter as his three-pointer sparked their breakaway as it turned a 49-all score to a 60-54 advantage.
Rosco Allen then took charge in the final frame as he connected half of his total points as the Niigata Albirex completed a weekend sweep of the Robots, which were missing the services of Filipino import Juan Gomez de Liano.
Allen finished the match with 20 points to go with seven rebounds and seven assists, Tshilidzi Nephawe tallied 20 points, Jeff Ayres produced 14 points and 10 rebounds, while Zen Endo got 12 points as well for Niigata Albirex.
Eric Jacobsen led the way with double-double 17 points and 11 rebounds, and Marc Trasolini and Asahi Tajima added 15 and 12 points, respectively, as the Robots dropped to 6-25.
In other result, Dwight Ramos and Toyama Grouses continued its winning ways following an 89-75 domination over Hiroshima Dragonflies at the Toyama City Gymnasium.
Ramos contributed six points, four rebounds and two assists as he only played for 20 minutes but more than enough for the Grouses to complete a weekend sweep of Dragonflies to improve to 13-19.
Brice Johnson led the charge for Toyama with double-double 19 points and 13 rebounds while Joshua Smith also got a double-double with 18 points and 13 rebounds. Julian Mavunga also tallied 16 points, seven rebounds, and six assists.
Ilonggo Ferdinand “Thirdy” Ravena III, meanwhile, was held to just 11 points on 4-of-11 shooting as his team San-En NeoPhoenix suffered a 79-62 defeat at the hands of Kyoto Hannanyz./ASC, WDJ