INQUIRER Sports

MANILA, Philippines?University of Santo Tomas worked behind a consistent power game to overwhelm College of St. Benilde and send the Lady Blazers crashing out of contention on Sunday in the Shakey?s V-League Season 6 second conference at the FilOil Flying V Arena in San Juan City.

The Tigresses? 25-13, 25-16, 26-24 demolition of the Lady Blazers in an hour and five minutes underscored the attacking depth that gave UST its ninth win in 10 starts.

Already assured of a semifinal berth, the pacesetting Tigresses refused to pull their punches with Aiza Maizo, Angeli Tabaquero and Maruja Banaticla spearheading the offensive.

Maizo, who was coming off a 27-point performance against Adamson University, delivered 18 hits this time with Tabaquero and rookie Banaticla contributing 12 and 11, respectively.

The win sent the Tigresses two games clear of the second-running Far Eastern University Lady Tamaraws, whom they will meet at 6 p.m. on Tuesday.

Entering the quarterfinals as the sixth-ranked squad, the Lady Blazers stayed in the hunt with a stunning victory over Ateneo de Manila University last week in the league organized by Sports Vision and backed by Accel, Mikasa, Mighty Bond and Oracare.

But they were unable to build on their promising start, yielding to Adamson and Far Eastern U before eventually falling to UST.

Skipper Giza Yumang paced the Lady Blazers with 18 points while guest player Rosann Fajardo and Zharmaine Velez combined for 19.

St. Benilde briefly gave UST a scare in the third set by taking a 20-16 lead.

But back-to-back errors allowed the Tigresses to regain the momentum and Tabaquero tied the game at 20 with a down-the-line kill. Yumang banged in a smash to the backline for a 24-23 Lady Blazers? lead.