Arellano stuns Perpetual, nears NCAA men‘s volleyball crown

Arellano University dealt Perpetual Help its first loss of the season with a stunning 12-25, 25-21, 19-25, 26-24, 15-9 victory to close in on the NCAA Season 93 men’s volleyball crown Friday at Filoil Flying V Centre.

The Chiefs, whose only loss in the eliminations was against the Altas, are now just a win away from winning their first title since joining the NCAA seven years ago and spoiling what had been a flawless campaign for Perpetual Help.

Christian Dela Paz, who was named the 1st Best Middle Blocker, unloaded 24 points to lead Arellano and overshadow the efforts of rookie MVP Joebert Almodiel’s 18 points for Perpetual.

Chiefs head coach Sherwin Meneses is aware that his team’s journey to the finals was in contrast to what the Altas’ took as the Chiefs had to first take on College of St. Benilde in the stepladder semifinals while Perpetual earned a bye to the finals.

And that tought test against the Blazers was what provided the Chiefs the emotional boost they needed against the 10-time champion Altas.

“We all know Perpetual, they won’t give up that easily and they know that the series is not over yet,” said Meneses in Filipino. “The benefit of our stepladder match it gave us that morale boost because when we played Perpetual [and losing in straight sets] our morale was really low.”

“And I trusted my players in this game because we don’t really have that one star because everybody can contribute.”

Meneses’ words weren’t just mere opinion as Dela Paz had ample support from his teammates who had nearly identical offensive numbers.

Roi Domingo, John Cabillan, and Christian Segovia all had nine points apiece for Arellano while Kevin Liberato and Demy Lapuz had eight points each.