Lady Altas Trips Blazers, Forces Playoff for Last QF Slot

Perpetual Help fought back from an opening set setback and swept the next three frames, completing a 23-25, 25-21, 25-17, 25-22 victory over St. Benilde to force a playoff for the last quarterfinal berth in the Shakey’s V-League Season
7 second conference at The Arena in San Juan yesterday.

The Lady Altas, with Sandra delos Santos and Nica Guliman on the attacking end, outlasted the Blazers in closely fought games in the last three sets to close out the single round elims phase with a 2-5 slate.

Perpetual Help later tied fellow newcomer National U in sixth place at 2-5 after the Lady Bulldogs bowed to the Ateneo Lady Eagles, 14-25, 22-25, 24-26, in the other match.

NU tried to salvage the game but failed to stop Ateneo, which pulled off close wins in the second and third sets to force a tie for first with the San Sebastian Lady Stags at 5-1.

The Altas and the Bulldogs dispute the sixth and last quarters berth in the season-ending conference sponsored by Shakey’s Pizza in a playoff on Sunday. Guest player Alyssa Valdez knocked down 12 points and Angeline Gervacio and
Fille Cainglet added 10 points apiece for Ateneo, which used import Surasawadee Boonyuen only in the third set. The Thai ace wound up with nine hits, the same output put in by Gretchen Ho.

Mervin Mangui made 19 attacks and finished with 20 points and guest player Denise Santiago backed her up with 10 hits but the rest struggled against the fancied Lady Eagles.

Delos Santos fired 14 kills and Guliman had 13 as they combined for a 34-point output for Perpetual Help, which shocked Adamson in five sets in its debut last July 15 but dropped its next five matches to move to the brink of elimination.

Ronerry dela Cruz added 14 hits while April Sartin tossed in 12 points as the Altas outhit the Blazers, 54-47, and had more blocks, 10-8, including four from delos Santos.

St. Benilde closed out with a 0-7 mark in another winless campaign in the league organized by Sports Vision and backed by Accel, Mikasa and Excelroof.

The Blazers looked headed for a big win after snatching the first set but wavered in down-to-the-wire finishes in the next three frames. Giza Yumang paced the team with 15 attacks for a 19-point output while Cindy Optana and Rossan
Fajardo had 16 and 14 points, respectively.

Meanwhile, the Perpetual Help-St. Benilde game will be shown on NBN-4 today starting at 2 p.m. while the Ateneo-NU match will be aired tomorrow.