INQUIRER Sports

MANILA, Philippines?Far Eastern University leaned on the vastly improved Cherry Vivas to hack out a pulsating 16-25, 30-28, 25-17, 25-21, 15-10 victory over defending champion San Sebastian College Sunday night in the Shakey?s V-League Season 6 second conference at the FilOil Flying V Arena in San Juan.

Thrust into a more prominent role on the attack, the 5-foot-10 Vivas thrived by finishing with 23 points on 19 hits as the Lady Tamaraws firmed up their hold of second spot with their fourth win in five games.

Earlier, St. Benilde barged into the win column with a commanding 25-19, 25-23, 26-24 victory over Lyceum.

Save for the third set where they needed to rally from 21-24 down, the Lady Blazers were hardly troubled as Giza Yumang and Katty Kwan spearheaded the attack with 12 points apiece.

The Lady Pirates committed 11 more errors than the Lady Blazers at 27-16 and fell to their third loss in as many outings.

Vivas made two successive kills to shove FEU ahead, 12-5, in the decider. The Lady Stags closed in at 10-13 after successive FEU errors only for guest player Rachel Ann Daquis to seal the victory in an hour and 55 minutes with a down-the-line smash.

Shaira Gonzales anchored the fiery start in the fifth set by scoring three of FEU?s first four points on kills.

Gonzales backstopped Vivas with 18 markers, while Daquis contributed 10 points.

The Lady Stags were actually undone by a spate of unforced errors by Analyn Benito and Elaine Cruz, whose outside hit put the Lady Tamaraws on match point.

Cruz had four errors in the fifth set alone, while Benito?s back-to-back violations allowed FEU to pull away from a 6-4 lead.

Still, she finished with 20 points to pace the Lady Stags, who dropped to 1-2.