San Miguel sweeps Fiesta Conference awards

San Miguel already had enough reason to celebrate even before Game 1 of its PBA Fiesta Cup Finals against Alaska could get underway Friday at the Araneta Coliseum. The defending Fiesta Cup champions Beermen made a twinkill after Jay Washington and reinforcement Gabe Freeman copped the Best Player of the Conference and Best Import awards. It was Freeman's second Best Import award as he pulled off an upset over top favorite Diamon Simpson of Alaska. Washington, the 2005 PBA Rookie Draft’s top pick, and Freeman were feted in simple rites prior to Game 1 of the best-of-seven title series. Washington bested Alaska's L.A. Tenorio, B-Meg Derby Ace's James Yap, Talk 'N Text teammates Ranidel De Ocampo and Jimmy Alapag, and Coca-Cola’s Gary David for the top individual plum given to local players at the end of each conference. The 28-year old Beerman received 1,365 points after topping the votes of media (507), players (150), Solar-TV (300) and the PBA (150). He also held the slimmest of margins in the statistical points with 258, just one point ahead of De Ocampo and David, who both had 257. Washington was a former two-time First Mythical team member, clinching the honor in the 2006-07 and 2008-09 seasons. Tenorio, the Aces' brilliant playmaker whom the team acquired in a trade with San Miguel for Mike Cortez, finished with 676 points while Yap collected 648. De Ocampo, the top player after the elimination round, totaled 475 with David, the conference’s leading local scorer, tallied 334. Alapag gathered 309 points. Meanwhile, Freeman again walked away with the top honor among imports after beating Simpson, 1358-1272. He was the top choice only among the players, 226, 104 more than the Alaska import. Solar-TV's decision not to cast a second place vote allowed the San Miguel import to bag the award. His Alaska counterpart, on the other hand, won in the voting from the media (583-372) and in the PBA (150-75), and also led Freeman in the statistics department, 417-385. But Solar-TV, the official broadcast partner of the PBA games, awarded Freeman with the top vote worth 300, but did not cast their vote for second place that should had been worth 150 points. A second place vote for Simpson would have given him the award outright, 1422-1358. Play-by-play anchor and marketing official Vito Lazatin represented Solar Sports during the voting. A far third in the voting was Shawn Daniels of Talk 'N Text with 537 points, followed by Derby Ace’s Tony Washam with 440 points. – JVP, GMANews.TV