MANILA, Philippines—And then there were four.
Making room for one more, the University of the Philippines joined the four-way tie for fourth at the expense of the University of Santo Tomas Tigresses 3-1, 26-24, 23-25, 25-20, 25-17, during their first round matchup in the UAAP Volleyball tournament at the Arena in San Juan Wednesday evening.
UP climbed to a 1-2 win-loss column and dealt UST its second loss in three games as the two schools joined Adamson University and National University.
All four schools are behind leaders Ateneo and La Salle with 3-0 records and second place Far Eastern University with a 2-1 slate.
Lady Maroons head coach Gerry Yee said the team truly deserved the win and it was their hustle and effort that brought them the positive result.
“They deserve to win,” Yee said. “They are all hard-working players.”
With UP nursing a slim lead, the Lady Maroons went berserk with a 12-4 closing run to put the boards at 20-14 en route to the victory.
“Our first game was forgettable, in the second game (against NU) we showed that we are not like the team before that we are not able to close out games,” Yee said.
“I told them that they are the ones who should decide if they want to win, and today they bounced back.”
Before the Lady Maroons took a stranglehold of the match, UST held the reins in the second with 9-2 start.
UP then went on a blistering 11-2 run to make it 19-15 in their favor but rookie Tigress EJ Laure took control in the set, but her efforts would not carry on the remaining two sets.
Nicole Ann Tiamzon, Katherine Bersola and Angeli Araneta were on point for UP with 19, 16 and 14 points respectively.
Laure led UST with 19 points of her own with main Tigress Pam Lastimosa adding 13.