Smart-Army, Generika dispute last semis berth

MANILA, Philippines — Smart-Army and Generika-Ayala dispute the remaining semifinal berth tonight in the Chooks to Go-Philippine Superliga Invitational Conference at the Filoil Flying V Center.

 Gametime is at 7 p.m. with the Lifesavers and the Giga Hitters out to make a breakthrough entry into the next stage, where outright semifinalist Petron awaits.

 Spikers Patty Orendain, Bang Pineda and Fiola Ceballos, libero Kat Arado and middle blockers Angeli Araneta and Ria Meneses spearhead the Lifesavers against the equally determined crew of Army veterans Ging Balse-Pabayo, Joanne Bunag and Nene Bautista and young University of Santo Tomas stars Dimdim Pacres, Tin Francisco, Caitlyn Viray and Alina Bicar.

 “We will have a lot of adjustments on offense because our players are not so tall. But when it comes to defense, we will not have any problem since it has been our advantage for our past wins,” said Generika coach Sherwin Meneses, who’s squad has yet to reach the Last-4 since its comeback in 2016.

 For their part, the Giga Hitters are further motivated to show they’re for real. From a winless conference in the previous Grand Prix, the Smart-Army belles have turned things around and won three of their four games in the preliminaries to progress to today’s quarterfinal match. 

 “Reaching the quarterfinals is big for us in a sense that Smart had zero wins last conference but we need to sustain our performance as we face a tougher and more exciting battle,” said Smart coach Kungfu Reyes.

 “We’re not only carrying the name of Smart, we also parade Army’s team as well as the young players from UST.  We have to take full responsibility in bringing those names whatever the result will be. We’ll get to see how far we’ll go,” he added.

 Opening the day’s hostilities are the battle for ninth between Cocolife and University of the East-Cherrylume at 2 p.m. and the duel for No. 7 between Foton and University of the Philippines-United Auctioneers at 4:15 p.m.

 The PSL is backed by Isuzu, UCPB Gen and Sogo Hotel with ESPN5, Hyper HD and Aksyon TV as broadcast partners. Senoh, Asics, Mikasa, Mueller and Grand Sport are the technical sponsors.