BUTUAN CITY—Navy-Standard continued its domination for the second straight day with Ronald Oranza claiming his second stage victory and Jan Paul Morales hanging on to the overall lead in the Mindanao Leg’s Stage Two of the LBC Ronda Pilipinas 2016 at the Butuan City here Sunday.
The 22-year-old Oranza timed an hour, 17 minutes and 59.32 seconds to rule the 3.71-km Stage Two criterium and collected his second straight lap win after he topped the Stage One road race the day before.
“I knew someone from my team will win this stage. I’m just not sure I will have that chance again,” said Oranza, a proud son of Villasis, Pangasinan and who now has four stage triumphs in six Ronda editions, in Filipino.
Morales finished second in 1:17:59.47 despite figuring in a spill in the last 20 minutes of the required one-hour loop after he hit the rear wheel of Oranza in one of the turns.
The 31-year-old Calumpang, Marikina native suffered contusions on his right shoulder and thigh, but it didn’t slow him down and even caught up with Oranza at the end to finish second in the stage.
“It was an accident,” said Morales, one of the country’s top sprinters.
Oranza, for his part, said he didn’t mean to hit Morales.
“I didn’t see him. I’m happy he’s okay,” said Oranza.
Navymen Daniel Ven Carino, Rudy Roque and Joel Calderon finished third to fifth in the same stage with clockings of 1:17:59.84, 1:17:59.88 and 1:18:00.25, respectively.
John Mark Camingao, the yellow MVP Sports Foundation local leader jersey holder given to the top cyclist from Mindanao, ran into problems with his gear-shifter.
But like Morales, he recovered in time to end up at No. 6 in 1:22:01.65.
For Navy captain Lloyd Lucien Reynante, he was contented to end up at seventh in 1:23:09.58 that kept his grip at No. 2 overall with 23 points.
Team LCC Lutayan’s James Paolo Ferfas, LBC/MVPSF’s Ronnilon Quita and Navy’s El Joshua Carino finished eighth to 10th with times of 1:23:09.76, 1:23:54.00 and 1:25:16.86.
Oranza remained at No. 3 with 20 points, thanks to his pair of stage victories.
Organizers are implementing a new scoring system where in they give put equivalent points to the sprint, KOM and stage positioning and amass it to come up with the overall lead.