La Salle coach sees potential volleyball finals matchup with NU

MANILA, Philippines — De La Salle University may be seeing more of National University soon.

La Salle head coach Ramil de Jesus, whose team seized an outright championship berth for the second time in three years, didn’t discount the idea of the Lady Spikers possibly facing the Lady Bulldogs in the volleyball finals.

In fact, de Jesus thinks it would be NU standing in the way when La Salle shoots for its fourth straight volleyball crown.

“The way NU is playing, it looks like it will be them,” de Jesus told reporters after the Lady Spikers recovered from a rare first-set beating at the hands of the Lady Bulldogs to win, 14-25, 26-24, 25-21, 25-20, and sweep the elimination round Saturday night.

NU looked like it faded as the match went on but it still remains as La Salle’s biggest threat if not the only threat to the Lady Spikers’ reign.

“They (NU) have the height and the players got intimidated,” acknowledged de Jesus, whose squad rolled to their 30th win in a row dating back to last season and will have a thrice-to-beat advantage in the final round while the three other teams in the semifinals will figure in a stepladder Final Four.

De Jesus’ other concern other than NU’s height is the long layoff.

“We also had an outright finals in Season 74 and we lost in Game 1,” he said. “The players will be able to recover with the break but it’s hard to get rusty. We need to practice more to avoid what happened two seasons ago.”

De Jesus is wary of how good NU is playing this season and even said that the Lady Bulldogs played their best against them Saturday.

NU appears to be the only threat to La Salle. But after the Lady Bulldogs’ best didn’t even stand a chance, there seems to be no team capable of beating the Lady Spikers.

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