SSC guns for V-League crown vs Santo Tomas

San Sebastian College tries to accomplish what it had failed to do last year – finish off University of Santo Tomas in their best-of-three showdown for the Shakey’s V-League second conference crown at The Arena in San Juan City.

The Lady Stags pulled off a surprise straight-set 25-21, 25-19, 26-24 victory over the Tigresses in the opener of the league’s title series last Friday and are raring to wrap it all up in today’s 4 p.m. encounter and erase the stigma of their sorry setback in the same conference last season.

SSC also took a 1-0 lead in last year’s finale but dropped the next two, enabling UST to steal the crown for their third championship in the league sponsored by Shakey’s Pizza.

“We’ve been in this situation before but we couldn’t go all the way to the championship. Hopefully, we’ll do it this time,” said San Sebastian coach Roger Gorayeb.

To achieve the feat, the Lady Stags must impose their power game behind MVP Laurence Ann Latigay, guest player Suzanne Roces, Analyn Joy Benito and Rysabelle Devanadera as the Tigresses are expected to go flat out to force a rubber match and rewrite history.

“We just played bad in the opener. We hope to do much better in Game 2,” said UST mentor Cesael delos Santos.

The Tigresses hope to draw the best this time from Mary Jean Balse, the league’s No. 5 in scoring who groped for form last Friday and failed to see action in the third set. She wound up with just four points.

With Balse tipped to come out strong, Venus Bernal will also have to raise the level of her game along with Aiza Maizo and Judy Ann Caballejo, who, however, have been dishing out solid games to help power the team to another crack at the championship.

For updates and results, visit the tournament website at www.v-league.ph. The league, organized by Sports Vision, is backed by Active White skin whitening products, Mikasa and Accel.

Meanwhile, Adamson, the first conference champion, also seeks to repeat over La Salle in their own battle for third. The Lady Falcons nipped the Lady Archers in the opener, 25-15, 21-25, 24-26, 32-30, 15-10.