Cignal overcomes drought, trumps Sta. Elena in Spikers’ Turf

Cignal HD Spikers. Photo from Spikers’ Turf Facebook account.

Cignal shrugged off a blurry start to turn back Sta. Elena, 23-25, 22-25, 25-16, 25-20, 15-9, and notch the second-best record in the Spikers’ Turf Reinforced Conference Saturday at San Juan Arena.

Lorenzo Capata completed the comeback for the HD Spikers, which improved to 2-1, with a clean down-the-line kill that landed squarely on the Wrecking Balls’ court.

Cignal head coach Sammy Acaylar said that they wanted to end the match in three sets but that proved to be tough to do against the Wrecking Balls.

“Of course I wanted to end it quickly,” Acaylar said.

“I was surprised by their movements, by their bonding, but instead of losing patience and throwing a fit I just extended my patience to show them they can win it.”

Acaylar’s “lucky pick” of the match was substitute libero Jay De La Cruz who played the last two sets after Sandy Montero played the first three.

“It was the libero that really changed the way of things,” Acaylar said.

Capate had 13 points to lead Cignal while Edmar Bonono, Alexis Faytaren, and Edwars Ybañez each had 12.

Nestor Molate led the 1-3 Sta. Elena while Alnasip Laja added 17.

Sta. Elena had a better attacking game coming up with 63 points while Cignal only had 50, but it was its errors that contributed to its downfall with 44.