Lady Falcons, Stags edge closer to final

Adamson leaned on its superb floor defense and Angela Benting’s power game to repeat over University of Santo Tomas, 25-22, 25-18, 22-25, 25-23, and stay on track for a second straight championship in the Shakey’s V-League at The Arena in San Juan City yesterday.

Guest player Neriza Bautista came through with back-to-back hits while Janet Serafica rammed in a service ace as the Lady Falcons unloaded three straight points to overturn a 22-23 deficit in the fourth set and close out the match at 1:36.

“We struggled in the third set but recovered in the fourth with our defense,” said Adamson coach Dulce Pante, whose wards took the first two sets but fell short of their sweep bid at the start of their best-of-three Final Four playoff in the league’s second conference.

Benting, Adamson’s top hitter in the elims with a 14-point norm, played true to form and scored 22 hits while Bautista added 20 kills to power the Lady Falcons to their second straight win over the three-time champions, whom they stopped, 25-23, 21-25, 9-25, 20-25, in the elims of the league sponsored by Shakey’s Pizza.

“Angela really wanted the team to win that’s why she persevered and gave her best,” said Pante.

The win thus moved Adamson to within one victory from advancing to the championship for the second straight time after beating Ateneo in the final in the first conference of the tournament organized by Sports Vision.

San Sebastian succeeded where UST failed as it exacted revenge over La Salle, 25-21, 25-19, 22-25, 20-25, 15-9, to likewise gain a 1-0 lead in their own side of the Final Four duel.

Lou Ann Latigay dished out a conference-best 30 hits but the Lady Stags needed to toughen up in the deciding set and cash in on the Lady Archers’ errors and a mental lapse to pound out the victory.

La Salle appeared headed to completing a remarkable comeback from 0-2 down by taking the first three points in the fifth set but libero Melissa Gohing failed to go out of the court in time after she was replaced for a violation.

The Lady Stags, who lost to the Lady Archers, 18-25, 25-23, 25-18, 25-16, in the elims, took charge from there, 8-7, then hung tough to clinch the victory.

“We slackened in defense in the third and fourth sets but we were able to put our act together in the fifth,” said SSC coach Roger Gorayeb.

UST, the No. 1 team which came into the match raring to get even with its lone tormentor in the elims, staved off a sweep by taking the third set and went ahead at 23-22 in the fourth on Venus Bernal’s drop shot.

But the Tigresses broke down in defense as Bautista canned in two hits in row to wrest the lead and Serafica served out the match with an ace, the team’s fifth in the match.

Mary Jean Balse scored 20 hits for UST, which also drew 18 points from Bernal, who had three service winners, and a combined 15-point output from Aiza Maizo and Bernice Co.

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 UST-Adamson game will be telecast at 2 p.m. today (Saturday) with replays to be shown on both Viva Prime Channel on Destiny Cable and Makisig Channel on Sky Cable. The SSC-La Salle match, being played at presstime, will be aired tomorrow (Sunday).