Tigresses bounce back after tough three-game slide
The University of Santo Tomas (UST) Tigresses were well aware of the situation they were in—backs against the wall, a season teetering between promise and disappointment.
On Wednesday night, they could have chosen to focus on an individual rivalry between two great scorers. They could have succumbed to the weight of unmet expectations.
Faced with a test of their character at Smart Araneta Coliseum, the Tigresses flaunted defiance.
UST’s 25-18, 23-25, 22-25, 27-25, 15-8 victory over Adamson didn’t just snap a three-game losing streak. It reasserted the Tigresses’ place in the Final Four hunt and, perhaps more crucially, their ability to redeem themselves.
36 down the drain
At the heart of it was Angge Poyos, whose 27-point explosion once again steadied a team searching for answers. And beside her was a fired-up Regina Jurado, who added 20 points and provided the emotional anchor the Tigresses had sorely missed during their slump.
“We just thought we could bounce back,” Poyos said postmatch. “We trusted in our coaches, our training, each other.”
For a team that had faltered under pressure in recent weeks, that belief manifested in every lunging dig, every momentum-saving kill. And none more so than in the fourth set, when UST, facing elimination, clawed back from the brink to steal the frame, 27-25. That shift broke open the fifth, where the Tigresses ran with conviction and never looked back.
Still, if the match belonged to UST, the spotlight—briefly and heartbreakingly—found Adamson’s Shaina Nitura. The rookie phenom erupted for 36 points, a single-handed crusade that came painfully close to rewriting the ending.
“It’s great because she can score that many points,” Poyos said of her counterpart. “I just hope she doesn’t give up. Patience—she’ll need that moving forward.”
It was the second time this season that Poyos had gotten the better of Nitura, though she was quick to downplay any rivalry.
“This was about us,” she said. “About reminding ourselves who we are.”
Because there were bigger things for the Tigresses on Wednesday.
And to meet the moment, Jurado brought a fire that hadn’t been dimmed by defeat.
“My mindset was, we had to win. Losing today would have made the road to the Final Four much harder,” she said. “My will to win just took over.”
UST, now 6-4 (win-loss), puts some distance between itself and those trying to crash the oddsmakers’ Final Four makeup. And with the hard part of its schedule cleared, the Tigresses are on the verge of another run, one they need before that second-round duel with league-leading National University.
And they might have just rediscovered the identity and character they need to achieve that.
