FEU didn’t show its real game in Ateneo loss, says Pons

Far Eastern University entered its match against Ateneo on Wednesday as the hottest team in the league with a four-game winning streak in the UAAP Season 80 women’s volleyball tournament.

The Lady Eagles, though, had no plans letting them stretch that to five.

Fresh from their four-set loss against De La Salle at the end of the first round, the Lady Eagles only had one thing in mind and that was to get back on the winning track.

The Lady Tamaraws, who were still at cloud nine before the start of the match, came crashing back to earth when the Lady Eagles swooped down on them in quick fashion, 25-19, 25-21, 25-17.

“We were coming off a win, so the tendency was we would kind of relaxed a bit so we would slow down,” said Pascua in Filipino. “Ateneo was coming off a loss so they had nowhere to go but up.”

FEU lost in every scoring area of the game with Ateneo taking a 38-27 advantage in spikes, a 6-4 edge in blocks, and a 5-3 lead in aces.

“We had really high morale after the first round because we just came off a win so we were really confident that we can beat Ateneo,” said captain Bernadeth Pons in Filipino. “But that confidence was gone when we played, our desire to win didn’t materialize.”

Pons, who was averaging 16 points a game before Ateneo, scored a season-low five points but she’s confident they can improve on their 5-3 record.

“We have to find ourselves once more because what we displayed in that game wasn’t our real game,” said Pons. There are still more opponents for us to face so we’ll just have to bounce back.”