BPC plum in the bag for June Mar Fajardo

MANILA, Philippines — With San Miguel Beer’s disposal of Alaska Milk in their Final Four faceoff, June Mar Fajardo has hurdled the last obstacle leading to a second straight Best Player of the Conference plum in the season and very likely to a record fifth MVP award at season’s end.

Good as gone with the Aces’ exit is Vic Manuel’s BPC aspiration, paving the way for probably a runaway victory by Fajardo in the race for the coveted individual award.

And should he go on to win another BPC, the 6-foot-10 Cebuano behemoth would be on course to stretching his reign as PBA MVP for a fifth straight year.

Just through the PBA Commissioner’s Cup quarterfinals, Fajardo had moved ahead of Manuel in their tight stats race.

And Fajardo might have gained a significant lead after their conquest of Manuel and the Aces, 3-1, in their best-of-five semifinal duel.

Fajardo continued to churn out double-double games while Manuel’s streak of 20-point games came to an end in their showdown. Manuel had a slight edge over Fajardo in the stats derby through the elims.

In the stats race for the season MVP award through the second conference quarters, Fajardo was sporting a runaway average of 29.6 as against the 25.3 of the second-running Stanley Pringle of GlobalPort.

Barangay Ginebra center/forward Japeth Aguilar was at third with 23.6, followed by San Miguel’s Arwind Santos (23.4), another Beerman Alex Cabagnot (22.0), GlobalPort’s Sean Anthony (21.9), Phoenix’s Matthew Wright (21.8), SMB’s Marcio Lassiter (21.2), Manuel (20.8) and TNT’s Jayson Castro (20.5) to round out the Top 10.