V-League: CSB evens record at St. Louis' expense

The College of St. Benilde Lady Blazers cruised past the St. Louis Lady Navigators in three sets, 25-13 25-15 25-20, Tuesday at the FilOil Flying V Arena, in the Shakey's V-League Season 11-1st Conference.

Assistant coach Alvin Dumalaog’s squad clinched a quarterfinals appearance thanks to their 2-2 record. Dumalaog however shares that his team must remain focused in their succeeding games.  

“May isa pa kaming assignment: Adamson. Yun muna ang paghahandaan namin, isa-isa muna.”

St. Louis on the other hand slumped to 0-4.

With Therese Veronas playing from the service zone, aided by Djanel Cheng distributing the ball to Maureen Loren and Jeanette Panaga, the score was a 15-3 beating in favor of the Lady Blazers in the first set. CSB increased their lead to thirteen at 21-8, before the Lady Navigators piled up a small  5-0 scoring run that brought the score to 21-12.

However, the deficit built by the Lady Blazers was too much to handle for St. Louis as they dropped the opening set, 25-13.

The Lady Navigators performed better in the second half, sparked by Krissian Tsuchiya, as they even picked up the lead at 5-4 and 6-5. Unfortunately that was the only bright spot of the set, as the things shifted to a repeat of the first set. With Ranya Musa’s efficiency from the service zone coupled with the consistency of Lumi Yongco, Veronas and Panaga, the Lady Blazers stole ahead, 16-8, by the technical timeout.

The hustle of Tsuchiya and Florence Madulid was simply overwhelmed by the Lady Blazers, who began to pull away with aplomb. A Musa quick attack, followed by a well-timed block, sealed the duel with another double-figure drubbing at 25-14.

The third set started with CSB on top with a 9-3 advantage, and seemed to be on pace to another blowout victory. But LSU resisted another lopsided defeat as players such as Marian Torres and Roxanne Almonte pulled the Lady Navigators within striking distance. They were able to reach a number of deadlocks and even grabbed a late-game lead of 20-19, but it was a case of too little, too late for the Lady Navigators as their miscues and poor reception cost them five straight points that finished the match at 25-20.

CSB's Panaga tallied a game-high of 18, followed by teammate Veronas’ 11 points.

The Lady Navigators failed to produce a double-digit scorer with Almonte’s team-high of eight points pacing the squad, succeeded by Tsuchiya’s five.

The Lady Blazers won the entire scoring skills battle with the advantages of 35-21 in spikes, 7-2 in blocks, 8-3 in serves and 25-21 in points won due to opponents' errors. - AMD, GMA News