Bench time helps Cobb measure FEU

Michelle Cobb may not have played the entie fifth set, but she made sure to make her time on the bench worthwhile as she once again proved her closing capabilities for De La Salle.

La Salle head coach Ramil De Jesus opted to sit his setter down midway through the fifth set in the Lady Spikers’ match against Far Eastern University in the UAAP Season 80 women’s volleyball tournament.

And as veteran CJ Saga took up Cobb’s place on the floor, the 18-year-old playmaker took the time to study FEU’s movements and listen to what head coach Ramil De Jesus observed on the Lady Tamaraws.

“Coach told me the possibilities of what could happen on the floor, and most of the time it really did happen,” said Cobb in Filipino Wednesday at Filoil Flying V Centre. “So what he said became really big and he also instructed me while I was on the bench.”

And when Cobb finally made it back to the floor in the final third of the fifth set, the ember within her grew into a fire and her sole mission was to orchestrate her team’s offense and dispatch FEU.

Cobb did just that as she found Desiree Cheng for the final point of the five-set win for La Salle, 24-22, 25-17, 24-26, 23-25, 15-7.

Then sophomore setter, who once played heroine in La Salle’s sweep of University of the Philippines in the team’s second game, said they ramped up the aggressiveness come the fifth set in order to forget about what happened in the sets they lost.

“We became more aggressive in the fifth set because we wanted to forget about the third and fourth sets,” said Cobb who had 49 excellent sets. “We just had to focus on the fifth set that we will kill it and take the lead because once you take the lead in the fifth set it’s really difficult to be caught.”

“When I got back on the floor, I told myself that we will finish this game and find the hitter that will score.”