Lakia Bright
On an evening plagued by power outages in Tuguegarao City, BanKo-Perlas import Lakia Bright managed to shine against Creamline’s star-studded roster.
Bright introduced herself to the country in a big way, scoring three of her 19 points late in the fifth set to help the Perlas Spikers score a come-from-behind 22-25, 25-16, 25-23, 17-25, 15-11 win in the Premier Volleyball League Reinforced Conference in Tuguegarao Saturday night.
With the Cool Smashers holding an 11-7 lead, Bright, the 22-year-old from Orange Park, Florida, engineered a telling 8-0 run as the Perlas Spikers jumpstarted their campaign with a solid win against the title favorites in a match that was interrupted by thrice when lights at Peoples’ Coliseum went off.
“I just tried to come back because I made a couple of errors and my teammates were very supportive of me so I told myself might as well go down swinging no matter what,” said Bright.
Almost eclipsed by the BanKo-Perlas win was PayMaya’s second straight triumph, beating defending champion Pocari Sweat-Air Force and propelling the High Flyers to the solo leadership.
“I saw a side of my teammates that I didn’t see in practice,” said Bright who was a standout in Auburn University in the US NCAA. “Tonight we played cohesively and blended well in so short amount of time.”
The Perlas Spikers jelled well enough to inflict on the Cool Smashers their first defeat in two outings, disappointing the fans who were cheering for the league big-names like Alyssa Valdez, Michelle Gumabao and Jia Morado.
Earlier, the High Flyers needed just three sets to spoil the debut of the Lady Warriors, 25-20, 25-19, 25-22, and register their second straight win.
Import Tess Rountree led PayMaya with 18 points, 16 of them via kills, to send across a message to the league that the High Flyers are a force to be reckoned with.
Jerrili Malabanan added nine markers while reinforcement delivered eight for PayMaya which downed Tacloban in the opener.
“The players did better today compared to the first game,” said PayMaya coach Roger Gorayeb in Filipino. “We minimized our errors and our imports were very determined to prove their worth.”
Pocari’s leader Myla Pablo unloaded 12 points Jeannette Panaga and import Madeline Palmer each tallied nine points for the Lady Warriors.