F2 survives Petron in five-set thriller to take PSL Finals Game 1

F2 Logistics moved earth and sky to take a 1-0 series lead against Petron in a five-set slugfest, 18-25, 25-23, 20-25, 29-27, 16-14, in the Philippine Superliga Invitational Conference finals Thursday at Filoil Flying V Centre.

Ara Galang unloaded 18 points to lead the Cargo Movers, who need one more win to secure the championship against their rivals.

F2 head coach Ramil De Jesus said his team had lapses especially with its over aggressiveness in trying to break the Blaze Spikers’ defense.

“That Petron team has few areas we can take advantage of so what happened was we had a lot of unforced errors,” said De Jesus in Filipino. “I just told my team that this is the championship and that we will get our points on our own and not from the opponents’ errors.”

The Cargo Movers scored on 25 points off of Petron’s errors, but the Blaze Spikers got 39 free points due to F2’s miscues.

“If we want to win we have to win on our volition and not on our opponent’s mistakes.”

Mary Joy Baron and Aby Maraño added 15 and 10 points, respectively, for the Cargo Movers while Desiree Cheng and Mich Morente combined for 16 points.

Bernadeth Pons and Mika Reyes had 14 points apiece to lead Petron while Aiza Maizo-Pontillas added 13.