Lady Blazers bag V-L crown

MANILA, Philippines — Call the St. Benilde Lady Blazers one of Philippine college volleyball’s finests.

In a display of dominance reminiscent of its indomitable back-to-back NCAA title reign, CSB was a class of its own in smashing Far Eastern U, 25-18, 25-19, 25-18, for the V-League Women’s Collegiate Challenge crown at the Paco Arena yesterday.

Zam Nolasco unloaded a team-best 12 hits as the Lady Blazers completed a two-game sweep of the Lady Tams and etched their names in the history books as the league’s first women’s champions.

CSB overpowered FEU in last Wednesday’s series opener, 25-18, 25-18, 25-16.

“Every game here serves as part of an experience which we hope to add to our arsenal and bring into our next games in the NCAA,” said CSB assistant coach JP Martirez.

“It just turned out that it resulted in a championship,” he added.

Making it sweeter for the proud school was three of its players going home with individual awards – Nolasco (best middle blocker), Jhasmine Gatle Pascual (opposite spiker) and Jade Gentapa (outside spiker).

The rest of the plums went to FEU’s Kiesha Bedonia (outside spiker) and Christine Ubaldo (setter), Perpetual Help’s Marian Andal (libero) and University of the East’s Riza Nogales (middle blocker).

Pascual eventually claimed the Finals MVP trophy.

Earlier, Josh Ybanez of UST and Perpetual Help’s Mary Rhose Dapol reaped the fruits of their conference-long exploits as they shared MVP trophies.