IMUS — Big man Jessie Collado asserted his might anew as he came up with a career game in powering Quezon City to an 87-78 victory over erstwhile unbeaten Navotas Clutch in the MPBL-Anta Rajah Cup at the City of Imus Sports Complex here.

Mr. Collado had another monster game, coming away with a double-double performance. He produced 16 points and a league-high 19 rebounds on top of four blocks for the Royal Manila-backed Capitals, who joined the Batangas City Athletics-Tanduay in a share of the lead with identical 3-0 win-loss record.

The Athletics walloped home team Imus Bandera-GLC Truck and Equipment, 74-56.

Mr. Collado is making a strong case for the MVP award this early as he has been named Best Player of the Game for the third consecutive match for Quezon City. His effort was not surprising at all for his head coach Vis Valencia.

“He’s got as big heart. When you look at Kuya J (Collado), his production was real quality, no doubt about it,” said Mr. Valencia.

But Mr. Valencia is not counting on one man alone as he saw the entire squad playing consistently.

“We didn’t change our game plan. What worked for us in our last two wins, we continued doing that,” he added.

Another team making its presence felt is Batangas City, which ran roughshod over the home team.

The Athletics jumped the gun early, taking a 19-9 lead and never looked back. They led by as many as 24 points, a layup by ex-PBA player Lester Alvarez, that gave his squad a 70-46 spread with only 4:54 left in the match.

But while Batangas City showed more balance in its production, Imus was like a one man show.

The Bandera came up with only 22 points at the half, 16 of those came from Ian Melencio, who had 16 of their total production in the first 20 minutes of play.

Mr. Melencio’s output was slowed down in the second half as he could only score seven the rest of the way.

Now that his team is on top along with Quezon City, Batangas City coach Mac Tan believes his squad will be the target of all the teams.

“Now the rest of the teams are targeting us,” added Mr. Tan. “Hopefully, the players could stick around. We still need to come out hungry. In (last) night’s game, we played better for 30 minutes compared to our last two games.” — Rey Joble

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