INQUIRER Sports

MANILA, Philippines - St. Benilde enhanced its quarterfinal bid and sent the University of the Philippines crashing out of contention with a clinical 32-30, 25-19, 25-13 victory Sunday in the Shakey’s V-League Season 6 second conference at the FilOil-Flying V Arena in San Juan.

The win assured the Lady Blazers of at least a playoff for the last quarterfinal berth, granting that Lyceum sweeps its remaining two matches against Far Eastern U and UP and St. Benilde bows to unbeaten University of Santo Tomas on Tuesday.

A loss by Lyceum will automatically send the Lady Blazers to the quarterfinals regardless of the outcome of the St. Benilde-UST duel.

In the second game, defending champion San Sebastian blew a two-set lead before surviving Ateneo-Oracare, 25-20, 25-21, 21-25, 17-25, 15-13, for its fourth victory in five games.

The win allowed the Lady Stags to come within a victory of second-running FEU at 5-1.

Already assured of a quarterfinal berth, San Sebastian refused to pull its punches, moving up to match point at 14-11 on Ateneo guest player Charo Soriano’s outside hit.

The Lady Stags squandered two match points before a Dzi Gervacio error wrapped up the victory.

Joy Benito tossed in a career-high 24 hits while Melissa Mirasol and Mondejar each finished with 14 points for San Sebastian, which lost its only other five-set match in the tournament to FEU last Sunday.

“We could’ve finished them off in three but they wasted the chance,” said SSC coach Roger Gorayeb, who attributed his team’s near-collapse to a lack of cohesion.

Gervacio led Ateneo with 20 hits while Fille Cainglet and Soriano added 14 points apiece. The Lady Eagles, who are also assured of a quarterfinal slot, slipped to fifth with an even 3-3 card.

With the UP defense focusing more on Giza Yumang, Katty Kwan was given additional room to operate. Kwan finished with 16 kills, an improvement from her eight-point performance in the loss to Ateneo last Friday.

Yumang wound up with 15 points for the Lady Blazers, who raised their record to 2-4.