Tigresses halt Lady Pirates for 2nd finals seat

MANILA, Philippines - University of Santo Tomas leaned on its experience to foil Lyceum’s first-ever crack at the championship while keeping its three-peat bid alive, hacking out a 25-19, 21-25, 25-17, 25-18 victory in their sudden death for the second finals berth in the Shakey’s V-League Season 7 at The Arena last night.

MVP Aiza Maizo came away with 18 hits, guest player Mary Jean Balse fired 11 points while Maika Ortiz and Michelle Carolino added 10 hits apiece as the Tigresses recovered from a second set loss to sweep the last two sets and completed their fightback from a 0-1 series deficit to arrange a title showdown with the San Sebastian Lady Stags for the fifth time.

Game One of the best of three series will be held Sunday.

“We are getting there (in our championship form) but we still have to finetune our game,” said UST assistant coach Vilet Ponce de Leon. “We just followed our gameplan and focused on our offense. Fortunately they came through.”

UST, which also drew 18 digs from libero Jec Curato, thus wrapped up their best-of-three series, 2-1, and reached the finals of the league sponsored by Shakey’s Pizza and presented by PLDT MyDSL for the ninth time.

The Tigresses hold a 3-1 lead in their last four finals meetings with the Lady Stags.

Joy Cases paced Lyceum with 19 points as Thai import Tip Santrong, who unloaded a solid 35-hit output in the opener, which the Pirates took in five sets, was held to 17 points.