<\/p>\n
The Nueva Ecija Rice Vanguards rallied, then thwarted the Pangasinan Heatwaves, 82-72, on Wednesday to forge a sudden-death in their North Division quarterfinal series in the Manny Pacquiao Presents MPBL 2025 Season at the <\/span>Ynares<\/span> Sports Arena in Pasig City.<\/span><\/p>\n Pangasinan stunned Nueva Ecija, 86-85, in the opener of the best-of-three affair at the Nueva Ecija Coliseum in <\/span>Palayan<\/span> City on October 15.<\/span><\/p>\n Trailing, 36-23, following three straight triples by Vic Manuel, Nueva Ecija clawed to within 44-45 at halftime and moved ahead, 65-64, after the third quarter.<\/span><\/p>\n The Rice Vanguards, behind Will McAloney and Rob <\/span>Celiz<\/span>, took control in the final quarter, pulling away at 78-67 before coasting to the victory that kept their bid to regain the crown they held in 2022.<\/span><\/p>\n McAloney posted 24 points and 9 rebounds to earn best player honors over <\/span>Celiz<\/span>, who tallied 12 points, 11 rebounds and 4 assists, Billy Robles, who notched 13 points plus 4 rebounds, Ryan <\/span>Costelo<\/span>, who finished with 10 points and 3 assists, and John Wilson, who contributed 7 points and 11 rebounds.<\/span><\/p>\n The Heatwaves drew 13 points, 5 rebounds and 2 assists from <\/span>Hesed<\/span> Gabo, 11 points and 7 rebounds from Manuel, and 8 points plus 2 rebounds from <\/span>Alyn<\/span> Bulanadi<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n Nueva Ecija missed the services of Top Gun Jaycee Marcelino, but his twin brother Jayvee chipped in 6 points, 4 rebounds and 4 assists.<\/span><\/p>\n The MPBL playoffs continue at the <\/span>Ynares<\/span> Center <\/span>Montalban<\/span> on Thursday, with games pitting Batangas against Zamboanga at 6 p.m., and Binan against Rizal at 8 p.m. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Nueva Ecija Rice Vanguards rallied, then thwarted the Pangasinan Heatwaves, 82-72, on Wednesday to forge a sudden-death in their North Division quarterfinal series in the Manny Pacquiao Presents MPBL 2025 Season at the Ynares Sports Arena in Pasig City. Pangasinan stunned Nueva Ecija, 86-85, in the opener of the best-of-three affair at the Nueva…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4015,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[105],"class_list":["post-4014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hoops-basketball","tag-mpbl"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pinoystep.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pinoystep.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pinoystep.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinoystep.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinoystep.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4014"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pinoystep.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4014\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4016,"href":"https:\/\/pinoystep.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4014\/revisions\/4016"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinoystep.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pinoystep.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinoystep.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinoystep.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}