INQUIRER Sports

TAGUM CITY -- Mindanao State University will bank on siblings Momoy and Yusop Abdul-karim in its quest for a second straight title as the 11th Nestea Beach Volleyball tournament's Mindanao qualifying round fires off Tuesday.

Momoy is taking over the slot left by Gabshar Tahilludin who partnered Yusop last year to down favored Far Eastern University, 23-21, 15-21, 17-15, in the Boracay national finals.

MSU came back from seven points down, 10-3, in the third set to stun the 1999 champion. It was Mindanao's first title in the tournament that also features women's division play.

Defending women's champion University of Visayas will field anew Jusabelle Brillo and Janez Armie Igot, who triumphed last year at the expense of the Southwestern University tandem of Marites Natad and Janelle Tabio, 22-20, 21-15.

Igot was also the other half of the UV's 2004 pair which lost in the finals to SWU, the tournament's only triple champion with a victorious spree from 2003 to 2005.

Tabio will be back this year for SWU with a new partner in Florianne Gutierrez.

The winners of the three-day qualifier here, to be held at the Tagum Beach Volley Dome, along with the topnotchers of the Visayas and Luzon legs, will advance to the grand finals on April 24 to 26, in Boracay.

The Luzon leg is set on March 25 to 27 at the Island Cove Hotel and Leisure Park in Cavite while the Visayas qualifying is slated at the University of St. La Salle in Bacolod from April 8 to 10.

The finalists will clash in a series of semifinal knockout matches in the first two days. The surviving four teams will enter the finals.

The national champions will take home P150,000 each, the runners-up P75,000 each and the third placers P40,000 each.

A total of 72 teams from 43 colleges and universities nationwide have signed up for this year's competition.

The other Mindanao participants are Agusan Institute of Technology, Ateneo de Davao University, Capitol University, 2007 women's division third placer Holy Cross of Davao College, Jose Maria College, Maharlika Institute of Technology, Tawi-Tawi Regional Agricultural College, University of Mindanao-Tagum, Universidad de Zamboanga, Xavier University and MSU.