Army seeks 2nd Shakey’s Open crown

MANILA, Philippines - While Cagayan Valley is out to keep the crown it won in record fashion last year, Army is hungry for another championship and is raring to slug it out with the defending champions in the Shakey’s V-League Season 11 Open Conference finals beginning Thursday at The Arena in San Juan.

“We haven’t won here since 2011, so we want to win again,” said Army coach Rico de Guzman, moments after his wards repeated over the Air Force Spikers, 25-11, 25-20, 25-22, last Sunday to sweep their Final Four series and arrange a title duel with the Rising Suns.

Army, which swept San Sebastian College in Season 8 finals of the conference sponsored by Shakey’s and backed by Mikasa and Accel, bowed to Cagayan in four in their elims face-off but struck back with a similar 3-1 victory in the quarters en route to clinching the top spot in the semis.

That makes the finals worth watching although the Lady Troopers seem to have the edge in manpower with their star-studded roster of former MVPs, including Rachel Ann Daquis, Jovelyn Gonzaga, Nerissa Bautista and Mary Jane Balse.

Meanwhile, Game One is set at 4 p.m. on Thursday after PLDT Home Telpad and Air Force dispute third place in a separate best-of-three at 2 p.m. The awards rites honoring the conference’s outstanding players will be held after the PLDT-Air duel.

The opener will be shown on a delayed basis on Friday over GMA News TV Channel but Game Two on Sunday will be aired live. The sudden death, if necessary, will be played on Sept. 7 and will also be shown live, according to the organizing Sports Vision.

Daquis, for one, is expected to be in her fiercest form after a forgettable stint in the opener of their semis series with the Air Spikers where she was pulled out due to poor form and scored just four hits in two sets.

The former FEU star did rebound in Game Two and fired 11 hits but more are expected from the comely Army ace hitter in the upcoming finals expected to go down-to-the-wire.

De Guzman also hopes Gonzaga, Balse and Bautista will further raise the level of their respective games along with top setter Tina Salak, libero Christine Agno and Genie Sabas and Joanne Bunag, who stepped up when Daquis struggled in the semis opener.

With their power-hitting powerhouse cast, Army expectedly emerged as the top spiking team after the elims, posting a 35.64 percent success with 725 spikes out of 2,034 attempts.

In contrast, Cagayan is in fourth behind Ateneo (35.43 percent) and National U (34.19 percent) with 33.69 percent with 660 kills from 1,081 tries.