Tigresses, Lady Spikers continue jockeying for best Final Four position
With the battle for a Final Four berth in Season 87 of the UAAP women’s volleyball tournament entering fever-pitch proportions, traditional powerhouses University of Santo Tomas and La Salle plunge back into action this Saturday, looking to keep on improving their current positions.
The 6-4 Golden Tigresses take on Ateneo in the 1 p.m. opening duel, and will do so with a renewed sense of zest and purpose after a hard-fought five-set win over Adamson last Wednesday that finally ended a three-game slide and kept them inside the circle of teams that will advance.
“We now have hope that in this transition, we’re able to continue adjusting,” said head coach KungFu Reyes, who heaved a sigh of relief as soon as his charges regained their winning ways.
“The learnings from our three losses are finally showing—our maturity and decision-making,” he went on. “The fundamentals will always be there, but [the lessons in] those breaks of the game during the losses? We’ve finally been able to make use of them to [generate] momentum.”
A triumph over the Blue Eagles could come in handy for Santo Tomas later on, as it tries to wriggle out of a tie with Far Eastern for third spot and, who knows, get a shot at No. 2 later on?
Stepping up
For the second-running, 7-3 Lady Spikers, things are much more simple.
Against listless University of the East, the Taft-based crew led by the prolific Angel Canino can just focus on harnessing a newly found dimension off their sweep of Ateneo also last Wednesday.
Unheralded heroines came out to help for La Salle in that win, with setter Mikole Reyes showing the squad that it could have more options as a critical juncture of the tournament approaches.
“If we can all be effective, it would be more confusing for opposing teams to keep up with us,” Canino said. “I think that’s a positive thing for our team as we go along.”
La Salle will be taking a two-game winning streak into the 3 p.m. contest as it tries to inch closer to defending champion National University (NU), whom everyone will be trying to catch at the top—if that is still possible.
The Lady Bulldogs have a 9-1 record and are practically conceded top-ranking unless something drastic happens to the star-studded team. The goal for most of the teams chasing Final Four berths now is to avoid finishing as the No. 4 team and not be burdened by a win-twice disadvantage against NU in the semifinals.
La Salle is the team with the biggest chance of catching up, but for the Lady Spikers, it’s first things first.
“We also need to continue improving in other aspects,” Canino said. “Though it seems we’re slowly doing just that.”
