Reyson Fuentes fakes a shot off Rafael del Pilar of La Salle at the San Juan arena .INQUIRER PHOTO/AUGUST DELA CRUZ
National College of Business and Arts stunned De La Salle University in three long sets, 30-28, 32-29, 25-21, to enter the semifinal round of Spikers’ Turf Saturday at San Juan Arena.
Both the Wildcats and the Green Spikers were at 3-4 before the playoff, and unfortunately for La Salle its own player gave NCBA the semifinals ticket.
Cris Dumago committed back-to-back errors to give the Wildcats the 24-21 match point and the victory.
Wildcats head coach Ernesto Balubar said that they struggled in the first two sets.
“Breaks of the game, the first two sets were really hard for us,” Balubar said.
La Salle’s Michael Zamora tore through the Wildcats in the early stages of the match and scored 10 points, but NCBA managed to stop him near the end of the second, prompting Green Spikers head coach Ronald Dulay to bench him.
“We managed to contain Zamora and we were blocking him, and we saw that it was effective because he was never used in the third set.”
NCBA is set to face favored Ateneo in the semifinals.
Reyson Fuentes led NCBA with 13 points while Edwin Tolentino and Paul Domingo had 12 and 11 points, respectively.
John Onia led the Green Spikers with 14.