La Salle bucked a strong challenge from Far Eastern U and leaned on guest player Chie Saet’s set plays in the last two frames to complete a 25-15, 18-25, 25-23, 25-18 victory on its return to the Shakey’s V-League second conference at The Arena in San Juan yesterday.
Celine Hernandez and Manilla Santos combined for 27 hits while Jacqueline Alarca and Stephanie Mercado had 10 points each for the Lady Archers, who had a fine start but sputtered in the next two before reasserting their might in the fourth to prevail in 1:32.
The Taft-based squad also lorded it over on the net in defense as it came away with 15 blocks against the five of FEU, which however held its own in attacks, 35-36.
“Our blocking is okay but we need to improve our set plays,” said La Salle coach Ramil de Jesus after the match.
The Lady Archers came out smoking but lost their rhythm in the second set as Kaye Martinez struggled in setting up their plays.
De Jesus fielded in Saet midway in the third as the Lady Archers bounced back from a second set loss to regain control with Santos scoring on a kill off a Saet set play.
FEU, which upended first conference champion Adamson in five sets last Saturday, refused to give up and took a 13-10 lead in the fourth but the Lady Archers countered with a 9-1 attack anchored on Michelle Datuin’s back-to-back kills en route to the victory.
Rachel Daquis scored 19 hits while Shaira Gonzalez tossed in 10 points for FEU, which fell to 1-1 in the single round-robin elims among eight teams in the tournament sponsored by Shakey’s Pizza and organized by Sports Vision.
Adamson vented its ire on St. Benilde as it posted a 25-21, 25-13, 25-22 win in the other game.
Rissa Laguilles scattered 17 hits, including 15 kills, while Angela Benting rammed in 12 attacks for a 14-point output for the Lady Falcons, who joined the Tams at 1-1 while dealing the Lady Blazers their second straight loss.
For updates and results, visit the tournament website at www.v-league.ph. The league is backed by Active White skin whitening products, Mikasa and Accel.
Meanwhile, the La Salle-FEU game will be telecast on NBN-4 starting at 2 p.m. today (Wednesday) with replays to be shown on both Viva Prime Channel on Destiny Cable and Makisig Channel on Sky Cable.