La Salle Lady Spikers seek 1st round sweep

VENGEANCE will be in the eyes of the De La Salle Lady Spikers when they go up against last season’s Finals tormentor National University Lady Bulldogs in the UAAP Season 85 women’s volleyball tournament today, March 22, at the Mall of Asia Arena.

Aside from the payback win, the Lady Spikers (6-0) will also aim for a first round sweep of the eliminations against the defending champs who carry a second-best 5-1 record.

Game time is 2 p.m.

Save for La Salle’s season-opening game against UST where it needed five sets to prevail, the Lady Spikers have looked formidable as a team this season. Super rookie Angel Canino has been at the forefront of La Salle’s attack while also drawing significant contributions from Jolina de la Cruz.

The tall La Salle squad is the number one team in terms of blocking and that’s what the Taft-based team banked on when it defeated Adamson last Sunday 22-25, 25-14, 25-16, 25-19 powered by their 14 blocks in the game.

La Salle interim coach Noel Orcullo said he wants his team to capitalize on its blocking prowess.

“What I’ve been telling them is that if we can get our points on the service and blocking departments, why wouldn’t we? And why would we make it hard for our spikers? We should bank on our strength which is blocking,” said Orcullo.

“We should live up to the billing that we are the number one team in terms of blocking. We are the number one team in blocking so we need to work on our job above [on the net].”

Canino, meanwhile, said that she expects the Lady Spikers to give the Lady Bulldogs a good fight this time.

“Season 84 was a different one. This Season 85, all teams have developed big time so expect us to fight. We will show what we got individually and as a team,” Canino said.

While the Lady Bulldogs have not been as dominant as they were last season, they head into this match with some momentum on hand after notching three straight wins.

NU bowed to UST on March 4, snapping its 20-game winning streak. Since then it has won three straight, including a 25-21, 25-9, 25-18 decision against Far Eastern University on Saturday, March 18.

Minimizing unforced errors is the key for the Lady Bulldogs to win against the Lady Spikers, Orcullo said.

“We need to be more consistent throughout the game because as you’ve noticed, we had so many unforced errors [against FEU]. We have to lessen them,” he said.