Welcome consolation as Adamson closes in on PVL bronze, 4 players bag awards

Adamson celebrates after a play against UST. INQUIRER PHOTO/ Sherwin Vardeleon

Riding high after having four of its players bagging individual awards, Adamson welcomed a much-needed confidence boost to beat University of Santo Tomas, 15-25, 25-20, 25-20, 25-19, and get the inside track for the bronze medal in the PVL Collegiate Conference Wednesday night.

By winning in four sets, Adamson will end up locking the bronze if University of the Philippines, which took the finals opener, beats Far Eastern University in Game 2 later.

“I’m rooting for UP,” head coach Air Padda said, smiling.

“These last two weeks have been the hardest weeks after we got booted out of the championship round,” said Padda. “It’s been really hard to try and push them to finish the fight and finish strong. Basically, we sucked that’s been our energy in training.”

But things changed after the Lady Falcons were informed that Eli Soyud (Best Opposite Spiker), Bernadette Flora (2nd Best Outside Spiker), Tonnie Rose Ponce (Best Libero) and Mary Jane Igao (Best Setter) will be recognized for their individual brilliance in the awarding ceremony.

“Today, it was just so amazing, that four of our players got awards and it came at a perfect time that they all needed confidence going into this match,” Padda said.

“It was like a reminder that all the hard work that we’ve been doing is not for nothing. You are more prepared to play UST and win in three and four sets.”

The four also validated their awards against the Golden Tigresses, who were looking to seal third place after taking Game 1 in five sets on Sunday.

Soyud scored a team-high 14 points, Flora added 12, Ponce had 19 digs and Igao dished out 12 excellent sets as Adamson achieved its goal of winning in three or four sets.

Fil-Italian spiker Milena Alessandrini led UST with 22 points, four nights after dropping 31 in Game 1.