St. Benilde, FEU try to stay in hunt

MANILA, Philippines - Back-to-the-wall St. Benilde and Far Eastern U try to avert elimination as they take on University of San Jose-Recoletos and San Sebastian College, respectively, in the Shakey’s V-League Season 7 at The Arena in San Juan today.

Both winless in three games in a short round robin elims among four teams, the Lady Blazers battle the Lady Jaguars in the 2 p.m. opener in Group B while the Tams go all out against early quarterfinalist SSC in the 4 p.m. main game.

While the Lady Stags, who swept their first two games to assure themselves of a spot in the next round, are fancied over the Tams in their Group A duel, the CSB-USJ-R match is expected to go down-to-the-wire with the Cebu-based squad also seeking a win after dropping its opening game assignment to Adamson last Sunday.

Joining SSC in the quarterfinal round of the tournament, sponsored by Shakey’s Pizza and presented by PLDT MyDSL, are defending champion UST, Lyceum and Adamson.

The top four teams in each group after a single round elims will advance to the next round where they will be grouped again into two with the top two from each division advancing to the crossover semis.

University of St. La Salle-Bacolod (1-1) and Southwestern U (1-2) in Group A and Ateneo (1-0) in Group B are assured of a playoff for the last quarterfinal berth in their respective groups.

St. Benilde will lean on Giza Yumang, guest player Rossan Fajardo, Zharmain Velez and Ren Agero as they go up against the likes of Rachel Singson, Abigail Praca and guest players Michiko Castaneda and Michelle Simbajon.

To stop the SSC spikers and live for another in the tournament organized by Sports Vision and backed by Accel, Mikasa and Mighty Bond, the Lady Tams must draw solid games from Cherry Vivas and Monique Tiangco and come up with an antidote to SSC’s troika of Jeng Bualee, Suzanne Roces and Joy Benito.