Pocari Sweat needed a major jolt to turn back hard-fighting Air Force Wednesday en route to its fourth straight finals appearance in the Premier Volleyball League Open conference at Filoil Flying V Centre.
Starting off cold against the determined Jet Spikers, the Lady Warriors found themselves under siege after losing the first two sets before clawing their way to a thrilling 16-25, 20-25, 25-23, 25-19, 15-10 win in Game 3 of the semifinals.
Myla Pablo scored 22 points, most of them in the third set where the Lady Warriors made a solid stand from 17-19 to extend the match.
“I was telling my teammates let’s help each other, we can do it despite the scores,” said Pablo.
Pocari has won the past three conferences in utter domination of the league it joined just last year.
It will now face BaliPure in the championship match after the Water Defernders melted the Creamline Cool Smashers in their semifinal decider, 25-22, 27-25, 25-23.
Game 1 of the best-of-three series is on Saturday.
And for a while, it didn’t look like Pocari Sweat was going to make it there.
“From the start we had trouble with our first ball,” said coach Rico de Guzman in Filipino. “And we started playing very stiff and tentative. It looked like we didn’t want to win the first and second sets.”
Fortunately for Pocari, the Lady Warriors were able to steady themselves just in time and then got a big boost from stringer Heather Guino-o.
Guino-o, pitching in for an off Kai Nepomuceno at opposite position, unloaded 14 points for the Lady Warriors.
“Good thing we got that positive vibe once again. I told them to just enjoy it, don’t dwell on the negative things,” said De Guzman.