Ateneo survives pesky La Salle-Dasma in straight sets

Ateneo Lady Eagles.

It was a different shade of green against usual blue but it still provided the pizzazz of the rivalry.

Ateneo had to hold off a persistent De La Salle Dasmariñas, 25-13, 25-19, 25-22, for its third straight win in the group stages of the Shakey’s V-League Collegiate Conference Sunday at San Juan Arena.

Alyssa Valdez went for her usual cross court kill to push the Lady Eagles to a 3-0 start in Group B while the Lady Patriots succumbed to a 0-3 record.

Valdez said errors were visible during the match but these early signs of weakness was better than to experience latter in the tournament.

“It’s better to see, now, our weaknesses,” the Lady Eagles’ captain said. “Now that we saw it, we won’t stop in working hard and improving.”

Ateneo is still reeling from the absence1 of key players like star setter Jia Morado who is suffering from a knee injury.

Ella de Jesus played the first set but didn’t have a significant contribution after suffering from an eye infection a week ago.

As the game stood on a virtual standstill late in the match, Valdez was the one who answered the call for a victory.

La Salle-Dasmariñas constantly harassed the Lady Eagles open defense, converting 30 points, but Ateneo fought fire with fire scoring 38.

Valdez said her team has to improve on receiving the opponent’s services and on the consistency of their game.

“We want to have more consistency on the defense, the service receive, and of course we want to have more consistency on our overall game,” Valdez said.

Valdez led the Lady Eagles with 22 points while Jho Maraguinot and Bea De Leon had 12 and 10 points respectively.

Lady Patriots captain Iumi Yongco had 10 points for La Salle-Dasmariñas. CFC