La Salle Spikers alone at the helm

MANILA, Philippines — Three-peat-seeking La Salle flexed its muscles in a 25-15, 25-19, 25-19 blanking of poorly-receiving University of the Philippines to grab the solo lead in the UAAP Season 80 women’s volleyball tourney yesterday at Filoil Flying V Center.

The Lady Spikers made a killing on the service line, dropping eight aces on an opponent that only had a 37 percent success rate in reception to set the tone for their third straight triumph en route to a leading 7-2 card. 

“Magandang sign kasi patapos ang first round, or start ng second round, maganda yung kinikilos ng team (It’s a good sign that we’re playing well ending the first round and starting the second),” said DLSU coach Ramil de Jesus after his wards scored a followup to their disposal of Ateneo and erstwhile co-leader National U.

“Isa sa mga target namin ay mag 1 or 2. Medyo maganda ang position namin ngayon so sana magtuloy-tuloy (No. 1 or 2 has been our target all along so we’re in good position right now. Hopefully we can sustain this moving forward),” said De Jesus.

Kim Dy and Des Cheng each banged in 14 markers for hot-serving DLSU, spicing  up their outputs with five and four service aces, respectively.

“After ng game sa NU, nakita ko na kaya namang maglakas ng serve or kaya makakuha ng ace. Sabi ko gawin namin ito sa UP and nagwork naman sa iba (During the game against NU, I saw that we can afford to put power on our serves and get aces. I told them to do this against UP and it worked for some of them),” said De Jesus. 

Far Eastern also banked on excellent serving to turn back free-falling University of Santo Tomas, 25-21, 25-21, 25-23, in the other match and wrest No. 3 with a 6-3 card.

Atoning for their poor service in a numbing loss to Ateneo, the Lady Tams landed 19 aces to fuel their victory and send the Tigresses on the brink with their fifth consecutive defeat and 2-7 slate.

In men’s play, defending champion Ateneo and National U continued their hot streaks with straight-set drubbing of separate rivals to share top spot with identical 8-1 cards.

The Blue Eagles claimed their eighth straight at the expense of Adamson, 25-19, 26-24, 25-22, while the Bulldogs dumped slumping UST, 25-21, 25-16, 25-22, as the victors assured themselves of at least a playoff for a semis berth.Their respective victims fell to 3-6 with the Tigers plummeting to their fifth consecutive setback.