Stanley Pringle rescued Barangay Ginebra San Miguel with timely baskets in a 92-88 escape over clingy Meralco in Game 1 of the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Philippine Cup best-of-seven semifinals series Friday night at the Mall of Asia Arena.

The veteran guard connected with a huge floater in the last 40 seconds to douse cold water on the Bolts’ closing stretch run that completed the Gin Kings’ sweet revenge over their elimination round tormentors.

Pringle finished with 22 points in a 9-of-13 field goal shooting capped by the dagger basket which gave Ginebra a 92-86 advantage.

Game 2 is on Sunday at the same venue.

“It’s a long series. There’s a lot of game ahead of us,” Gin Kings head coach Tim Cone said.

“It’s just nice to get the first one out of the way as it always is in a series you wanna get that one. You put the other team on a reactive basis. But the bottom line it’s just one game, we got a lot of games to play.”

Rookie Ralph Cu played big time in his first semis stint, delivering 18 points off 6-of-7 three-point shooting while Japeth Aguilar added 17 markers and eight boards for Ginebra.

Maverick Ahanmisi finished with 15 markers and Christian Standhardinger quietly filled the stats box with 14 points, seven boards, seven assists and one steal for the Gin Kings.

Pringle pushed Ginebra’s lead to double figures, 83-73, with five straight points in the last 3:49 of the game.

The Gin Kings maintained their 10-point lead with 1:35 left before the Bolts threw full court pressure to force a couple of turnovers as Chris Newsome cut Meralco’s deficit to 90-86 with 1:01 left.

Meralco saw its five-game winning streak snapped at the start of its eighth straight playoffs meeting with Ginebra since 2016.

Newsome paced Meralco with 21 points, 13 rebounds, six assists and a steal while Chris Banchero added 15 markers and eight dishes.

Allein Maliksi had 13 while Bong Quinto and Cliff Hodge had 11 and 10 points, respectively, for the Bolts.

Box scores:

GINEBRA (92) --- Pringle 22, Cu 18, J.Aguilar 17, Ahanmisi 15, Standhardinger 14, Thompson 5, Onwubere 1, Tenorio 0, Pinto 0

MERALCO (88) –-- Newsome 21, Banchero 15, Maliksi 13, Quinto 11, Hodge 10, Almazan 8, Bates 6, Caram 3, Pasaol 1, Mendoza 0, Torres 0, Pascual 0

Quarters: 22-22, 40-41, 73-61, 92-88