Back-to-back champions De La Salle University Lady Spikers closed in on their ‘grand slam’ third three-peat after prevailing over the Far Eastern University Lady Tamaraws in Game 1 of the best-of-three women’s volleyball Finals, 29-27, 25-21, 25-22 in UAAP Season 80 Women’s Volleyball, Saturday, at the Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City.
The extended first set was a premonition of the match––La Salle displaying their championship experience while letting inexperienced FEU succumb to their own mistakes.
La Salle was already one win away from pocketing the opening frame, 24-21, when FEU turned things around with a 5-0 run capped off by a service ace by Kyle Negrito. The following rallies, however, saw the Lady Tamaraws struggling and wasting their lead with their own errors that transferred the set point back to the Lady Spikers.
Tin Tiamzon then took over with a strong attack, but FEU came up with another error to surrender the set to La Salle. The Lady Tamaraws committed 17 glaring unforced errors in the first set alone.
Momentum and composure stayed with the defending champions in the next two sets, even when FEU was taking the lead or staging a comeback.
One of the reasons why was the ‘magic bunot’ May Luna particularly in the crucial stretch of the third set. Luna’s back-to-back service aces allowed La Salle to take the lead, 16-15, after being down by as much as five points.
The Lady Tamaraws threatened to avoid a sweep after cutting down the 22-17 lead to a single point, but the Lady Spikers stopped the bleeding with two straight points to reach match point. Heather Guinoo momentarily kept FEU alive, but she committed a service error that sealed the Game 1 win for La Salle.
Former Finals MVP Kim Kianna Dy led La Salle with 10 points, with May Luna who played off-the-bench contributing 9 markers. Team captain Majoy Baron and Tin Tiamzon had 8 points apiece.
La Salle silenced Bernadette Pons and Chin Bases to single-digit outputs as it was Heather Guinoo who top-scored for FEU with 14 points.
Player of the Game: May Luna, 9 points (7 attacks and 2 service aces).
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