By Reuel Vidal

The never-say-die Barangay Ginebra Gin Kings lived up to their tradition of winning the important games with a hard-earned 91-88 victory last night at the Cuneta Astrodome over the San Miguel Beermen to tie their best-of-three KFC-Philippine Basketball Association Philippine Cup quarterfinals matchup at one game each.

The Gin Kings found an unlikely hero in Ronald Tubid to force a sudden-death Game 3 tomorrow.

Tubid scored a team-high 19 points including the final two points of the Gin Kings on free throws to power his team to victory.

“Talagang kailangang-kailangang manalo kaya ginawa namin ang lahat,” said Tubid. “Tulong-tulong naman kami ng mga teammates ko talaga. At saka isa pa, death anniversary ngayon ng tatay ko kaya mas motivated ako. Para sa kanya ito.”

San Miguel’s Dorian Peña split his charities to push San Miguel to a one-point edge, 86-85. Tubid then scored on a difficult lay-up but missed the extra charity to push Ginebra back on top, 87-86.

Peña then followed up his own miss to again push the Beermen ahead, 88-87. But that proved to be San Miguel’s final points. Junthy Valenzuela snatched the lead back for Ginebra with a lay-up which he kissed off the glass, 89-88, for San Miguel.

The Beermen then buckled under the pressure and could not complete an inbound play. Bonbon Custodio called a timeout and was called for a technical foul. Tubid extended the Ginebra lead by converting the technical free throw, 90-88.

Tubid himself finalized the count on a split charity, 91-88.

Lordy Tugade had one final chance to send the game into overtime but his triple missed the mark as time expired for good.

Jayjay Helterbrand and Eric Menk had identical 15 points for Ginebra.