Hard work paying off as Lady Eagles run like well-oiled machine

MANILA, Philippines—It doesn’t look like Ateneo’s victorious run in the UAAP Season 81 women’s volleyball tournament would end anytime soon.

The Lady Eagles easily swept Far Eastern University, 25-21, 25-10, 25-18, Wednesday to stretch their winning streak to nine straight games since losing the opener in February.

No other team in this tournament has established a four-game winning streak wth University of Santo Tomas, De La Salle, and FEU only winning three straight.

“I think it just shows our hard work is paying off and that it doesn’t matter what happened in the past, it doesn’t matter who it is, we just have to deal with it now,” said opposite hitter Kat Tolentino.

“It’s the second round and we have to give everything and I think that’s what the team did,” added Tolentino, who finished with 11 points to lead the Lady Tamaraws.

Ponggay Gaston, who also had 11 points in the game, said one of her teammates just barked “guys work together” when they were down 10-6 against the Lady Tamaraws in the third set.

“There was a point when we were behind but that didn’t stop as because we knew we had to work as a team and there was someone in the court that said ‘guys work together’ then after that we just jelled,” said Gaston.

Behind Ateneo’s offense, though, was Deanna Wong who orchestrated everything with 30 excellent sets for the Lady Eagles.

Both Gaston and Tolentino were in awe of Wong’s playmaking but the setter would rather deflect the praise to her teammates.

“Actually it’s not in my head how many excellent sets I get, this is a team win,” said Wong. “I just have to get the ball all the time and I’ll always be there for the team. I have excellent sets because of my spikers.”