Aspac gets 2nd win Kobatama finals

JAKARTA (JP): Powered by Bobby Parks and Felix Bendatu, defending champion Aspac of Jakarta yesterday pipped Pacific of Surabaya 95-78 on the second day of the Intercity Professional Basketball League's final leg.

With the victory, Aspac, behind which most of the Senayan Basketball Hall's spectators threw their weight, have remained undefeated since the league's kick-off here in September and maintain its lead. On Tuesday it whipped Hadtex of Bandung 92-73.

Parks racked up 33 points, mostly through his applause- inviting dunks and accurate free throws.

Parks' teammate, Raheem Oates added 23, but it was Felix who showed amazing accuracy at zeroing in on three-pointers and remarkable agility in intercepting. He made half of Aspac's treys and 38 percent of the steal intercepts.

"They show equal skills, of which we lack," Pacific's coach, Willy Winoto said, "Their players are far taller than ours."

Willy added that actually there were many golden chances to even up the score but his players missed them due to faulty shooting. This was made worse by an emotional Mike King whose bad temper, and tendency to foul, was easily provoked. "He is by nature temperamental," Willy said.

Aspac's manager Irawan Haryono said his team's victory lay in its strategy to make Mike King and Wallace Manns, who together scored 61 for Pacific, error-prone.

"You saw Mike King get frustrated? We succeeded in persuading him to errors, on which we capitalized," said Irawan. Pacific's fouls gave Aspac 23 free throw shots, 13 of which were sunk.

But Aspac's power to provoke errors induced a fight in the first half between Aspac's forward Mohammad Rifki and Pacific's play maker G. Indrawan. Both claimed to have been elbowed but it was not clear who landed the first blow.

The dispute involved the two team managers who exchanged abusive words, but the referees calmed them down a few minutes later.

In another match yesterday, Indonesia Muda of Jakarta beat Bima Sakti of Malang 85-66.

Today Hadtex of Bandung will fight against Pacific, Bima Sakti against Siliwangi of Bandung, Aspac against Pelita Jaya of Jakarta and CLS of Surabaya against Indonesia Muda. (arf)