San Beda averts disaster, survives five-setter against JRU

Photo by Tristan Tamayo/INQUIRER.net

San Beda gathered its composure in the final moments and salvaged a five-set win, 23-25, 25-19, 13-25, 25-19, 15-9, over Jose Rizal U in its opening game in the NCAA women’s volleyball tournament Friday at Filoil Flying V Centre.

The Lady Red Spikers ended the match on an 8-2 run with Ceska Raqraquin coming through in the clutch for San Beda.

Raqraquin gave San Beda an 11-8 buffer with an off-the-block kill then spiced things up a little more with a down-the-line attack for the Lady Red Spikers’ 13-9 lead.

San Beda head coach Nemesio Gavino had no problems with the tough start to their season, as this will allow them to look at what needs to be done through the course of the tournament.

“This is fine by me so we can make our adjustments this early,” said Gavino in Filipino. “We had a poor performance in the third set and we had to regroup, reorganize our reception and attack.”

“That fifth set was all came down to character, if they will give it their all the game will be theirs. I don’t want all their hard work to just come to nothing.”

Nieza Viray put up a game-high 19 points to lead San Beda while Raqraquin and Sattriami Espiritu had 13 and 11 points, respectively.

Dolly Verzosa had 18 points to lead JRU while Shola Alvarez added 17.