Unleashing feared duo, UST rips UE and ousts Adamson
University of Santo Tomas (UST) dealt Adamson two of its defeats in the UAAP Season 87 women’s volleyball tournament.
On Saturday, the Tigresses slammed the door shut on the Lady Falcons and super rookie Shaina Nitura, even if the only place both teams met was in the hallways of Smart Araneta Coliseum.
UST, playing against an already eliminated University of the East (UE) squad, still opted to go all out and unleashed its fearsome one-two punch in Angge Poyos and Regina Jurado.
And for good reasons.
“The consistency of our game is the most important thing,” coach KungFu Reyes said in Filipino. “If you noticed, when we lost three straight games, we had lapses from our wing spikers.
“Poyos [was] not scoring [at a] 100-percent [capacity] … It’s very uncharacteristic for her. And she’s coming back … That’s the missing output when we were losing just two, three points in our losses,” he added.
“That’s the missing piece.”
Poyos and Jurado led the Tigresses to a breezy 25-19, 25-16, 25-15 victory over the Lady Warriors, a victory whose tremors were felt by the two teams waiting to take the court in the second game.
Adamson, which has gone on a revival of sorts, including a stunning victory over defending champion National U, was hoping to keep its hopes for a Final Four slot alive with a win over Far Eastern U later in the day.
But UST’s victory knocked the Lady Falcons out of contention, sending Nitura and her teammates to join eliminated squads UE and Ateneo.
Poyos, last year’s top rookie, and Jurado combined for 22 points in UST’s easiest assignment in its last three elimination games.
“Now, we still need the support of Angge and those [players] who deliver quality minutes. Whatever we are missing at any point, at least she can cover it up,” Reyes said.
“There’s nothing more we can say about Angge and Reg,” Reyes added. “As long as they are standing and can jump, they will [contribute to the team].”
The Tigresses are not just aiming to lock up a Final Four berth; they’re also trying to keep their hopes alive for a twice-to-beat bonus going into the semifinals.
Easiest step
Beating the Lady Warriors is only the first step, and the easiest, to the Tigresses’ goals. And it’s not going to get easier with wild-card University of the Philippines and the fearsome Lady Bulldogs awaiting them when the league returns from the Holy Week break.
So Detdet Pepito knows that every win UST can get will add up when it matters the most.
“Actually, when we lost to La Salle, that’s the most painful [defeat] and one of the things we are drawing motivation from,” Pepito, the team captain, said in Filipino.
“After that loss, for me, we could not afford to lose again, because we saw the performance of the lower-ranked teams which are fighting as much as they can. They want to win, so as one of the teams at the top, we should want it more,” she added.
