For a little over a year—404 days, to be exact—nobody could beat the Abra Solid North Weavers. On Saturday, the San Juan Knights finally did.
The defending MPBL champions absorbed a 66-58 defeat at the Filoil EcoOil Centre, snapping a 38-game winning streak across the regular season and playoffs that had made them the most dominant team in the league’s history. Add the 10 victories in the preseason tournament and Abra had not lost a game that mattered in over a year. The last defeat came on March 19, 2025—a 70-60 loss to Pasay. Six days later, they started the run. On Saturday, the new boys from San Juan ended it.
How It Happened
San Juan had the game under control for most of the night. The Knights built a 56-44 lead that looked comfortable enough to hold. Then Abra went on a run, and suddenly a 12-point cushion had shrunk to three with under two minutes remaining.
That is when Mike Phillips and Harold Alarcon stepped up. The two collegiate standouts converted back-to-back baskets to steady San Juan and push the lead back. Every time DJ Fenner—the former University of Nevada standout who paced Abra with 18 points—tried to bring the Weavers back, Patrick Sleat and Reyland Torres had an answer. Free throws by Gerry Abadiano sealed the big win.
Former PBA veterans Aldrech Ramos and James Kwekuteye led San Juan in scoring with 12 and 10 points respectively, with Ramos adding 9 rebounds to his line. Phillips finished with 4 points and 11 rebounds. Alarcon shook off a slow shooting start to post 8 points, 8 rebounds, 6 assists, and 2 steals—the kind of all-around performance that wins close games in the fourth quarter.
Fenner shot 4-for-12 for his 18 points on what was a frustrating night for Abra in the halfcourt. Mike Ayonayon added 12 for the Weavers, but the bigger story was the absence of their best player when it mattered most. Reigning league MVP Dave Ildefonso played just 16 minutes after suffering an injury that kept him off the floor for the final five minutes of the game. Whether that affected the outcome is impossible to say for certain—what is certain is that losing your best player late in a close game is never ideal.
What It Means
San Juan improves to 3-1 in the North Division—a strong early-season statement for a franchise that stacked its roster with collegiate standouts and clearly came to contend for an MPBL title. Abra slips to 2-1 and absorbs its first real test of the new season in the worst possible way.
The streak is over. The Knights came into this game off an 89-94 overtime loss to Rizal-Xentromall and answered by beating the most dominant team in the MPBL. That is the kind of result that changes how the rest of the North Division thinks about itself—and how it thinks about San Juan.
Abra was not perfect on Saturday. Ildefonso got hurt, Fenner could not make enough shots, and everybody else shrunk when the moment required composure. Thus, the second longest-winning streak in local hoops—tens of games behind the 108 straight wins notched by the NU Lady Bulldogs in the UAAP—ended. But best believe the Weavers will regroup. They always do.
But for one night, in front of a raucous San Juan crowd, the invincible team lost. And the Knights are making it clear they belong.
