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The Morning After
Vic Villafranca

The last laugh, last slot in round of four for Shell

Say "Cheese"? Nobody had to say anything to Shell team manager Ernie Inocencio the other night to make him break out with the biggest, widest, most delirious smile among the some 4,000 regular customers of the PBA that braved a game-time thunderstorm to witness Shell Azodrin square off with Manila Beer in a swinging door, there's no tomorrow match for the last slot in the round of four of the pro league's All-Filipino conference.

Not the way the Bug Busters bucking the tall odds and the early loss on injury of one of their more reliable hitman, Arturo (Bay) Cristobal, outhustled and outgunned Manila Beer, 95-90, in a down-to-the-wire Thursday night thriller to give Ernie the last laugh in a battle of laughs with Manila Beer manager Andy Jao that had started three nights earlier.

"As you can see," the ebullient Ernie told a friend after the game, "I'm grinning from ear to ear."

He could also have grinned from ringside all the way to the bleacher seats, from one end of the ULTRA court to the other, from Pasig to Roxas Boulevard, and nobody would have denied him the right to enjoy that heady feeling of being able to come up with the sweetest smile on a somber evening when smile was to risk fracturing a jaw.

For that was no puny feat which the Bug Busters pulled off against a club, which, man for man, stood at least a head taller than Shell, which had come into its maiden season in the pro league with a line-up just slightly better than a pick-up, ragtag squad.

Sure Shell could boast a gaggle of veterans like Philip Cezar, Bay Cristobal and Bernie Fabiosa, its acquisitions from a fabled Crispa team that is no more, and Bogs Adornado and Rey Lazaro, whom it got from Great Taste Coffee and Tanduay. But after the five league oldtimers, the Bug Busters slate looked like the original babes in the woods gang.

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The PBA Shell Team's Formation:

First Trip to the All Filipino Finals