Games Sunday:
(Cuneta Astrodome)
3 p.m. – RC Cola-Air Force vs Petron (women's)
5 p.m. – AirAsia vs Generika-Army (women's)
7 p.m. – Systema vs Via Mare (men's)
MANILA, Philippines – RC Cola-Air Force survived a tough Cagayan Valley side, 21-25, 25-14, 19-25, 25-19, 15-12, Wednesday to remain unscathed in the 2014 PLDT Home DSL-Philippine Superliga (PSL) All-Filipino Conference volleyball tournament at the Cuneta Astrodome.
Joy Cases and Judy Caballejo led the Raiders in arresting a tentative start before they unleashed a strong finishing kick to coast to their third straight win and the solo leadership in the women's division of this premiere club tournament supported by PLDT Home DSL and backed by Mikasa, Asics, Mueller Tapes, Jinling Sports Equipment, LGR, Bench and Healthway Medical.
In the second game, reigning champion Generika-Army barged into the win column as it essayed a masterful 26-24, 25-11, 25-22 victory over Cignal.
Rachel Daquis nailed 11 points while Jovelyn Gonzaga contributed 10 markers for the Lady Troopers, who displayed impressive form despite missing the services of seasoned setter Tina Salak.
"We have a new setter. We're still adjusting," said Army coach Rico de Guzman, whose wards nearly squandered an 11-point advantage in the third set before claiming their first win in third game.
Cases punched in 19 kills for a total of 22 points while Caballejo chipped in 20 markers for RC Cola-Air Force, which clogged the net in the fifth set to silence Lady Rising Suns' top gun Aiza Maizo and prized rookie Janine Marciano.
"I told them that we can win this game for as long as we contain Maizo and Marciano," said RC Cola-Air Force coach Clarence Esteban, who drew 16 points from Iari Yongco and 13 markers from Maika Ortiz.
After opening the game with a string of errors and weak attacks, the Raiders caught fire in the second set before going off again in the third.
But the fourth set was an entirely different story as Ortiz, Caballejo and newcomer Jocemer Tapic launched a furious assault to turn a 12-14 disadvantage into a huge 21-15 buffer.
Back-to-back errors, however, put the Lady Rising Suns closer, 19-23, but Ortiz scored on a single block while Cases unloaded a booming spike to stretch the game into an extra set.
It was all RC Cola-Air Force in the fifth set as Cases and Ortiz steered the Raiders to an 8-2 start to never look back.
"We started out slow. It was such a bad start. That's why we had a hard time getting back into the game," said Esteban, who turned the erstwhile lowly squad into a rock-solid contender.
"But I prepared the girls for this kind of situation. That's why I was confident that we can pull it off."
Maizo scored 20 kills for a game-high 23 points while Angeli Tabaquero and Pau Soriano backed her up with 14 and 12 points, respectively.
The Lady Rising Suns fell to sixth place with 1-4 win-loss card in this competition organized by Sports Core with Solar Sports as official broadcast partner.