Ateneo win, first round loss to NU fuel La Salle’s vengeance

There were a couple of things that De La Salle used as motivation when it faced National University in the second round of the UAAP Season 80 women’s volleyball tournament.

And those two things made up for one odd combination.

The first one was La Salle’s first round victory against Ateneo and the other was the Lady Spikers’ previous loss to the Lady Bulldogs.

Captain and reigning league MVP Mary Joy Baron said their win against the Lady Eagles, 25-20, 25-17, 24-26, 25-20, was the game that reminded them why they are worthy of being the UAAP champions.

“I think we took the foundation from our great performance against Ateneo because that was when we found out who we are as a team,” said Baron in Filipino Saturday at Filoil Flying V Centre.

Against its fierce rival, La Salle came back from a 21-11 deficit in the third set with a furious 10-0 run, and although the Lady Spikers dropped the period, the sprint unleashed its fighting spirit to grab the match in four.

“It was then that we realized that ‘oh my God we can do this and play with the maturity required from us,’” said Baron who had 11 points against the Lady Bulldogs. “We saw that in this game because even though we were down by several points we were able to make a comeback and hold on.”

La Salle, despite the commanding third set against NU, had to claw its way in the two sets.

NU had a 17-10 lead in the second but the Lady Spikers fought through it with Baron giving them a 21-19 lead off a service ace.

Desiree Cheng then finished off the second set with back-to-back kills for La Salle.

Naturally, the Lady Spikers were also eager to get back at the Lady Bulldogs for their first round loss.

La Salle lost to the Lady Bulldogs  26-24, 19-25, 22-25, 25-17, 16-14, back on Feb. 18 with NU stretching its win streak to four wins and the Lady Spikers dropping to 3-1.

“We had one week to prepare for this so we had this added motivation that we were beaten in our first meeting,” said Kim Dy, who had a game-high 14 points in the second outing, in Filipino. “We told ourselves ‘hey guys we lost to NU in the first round’ and that alone became one of our motivations for this game.”

“Of course it has been a trademark of La Salle that we will fight back after we’ve lost against anyone,” added Dy.