Petron, Foton ladies begin q’final quest

While defending champion Petron is expected to waltz into the quarterfinals, former champ Foton will have to put up with dangerous PLDT in Thursday’s sudden-death playoffs in the Philippine Superliga All-Filipino Conference at Filoil Flying V Centre.

Petron, which strung up 13 wins against one loss in the preliminaries, will face downtrodden Marinerang Pilipina, which has only won three sets in losing all 14 of its matches.

But of course, Petron coach Shaq delos Santos remained cautious, saying anything can happen in the 4:15 p.m. match: “This team (Marinera) has nothing to lose, we can’t take them lightly.”

The Blaze Spikers have all the reasons to take the Lady Skippers lightly, though. They won their two encounters via similar three-set routs (25-12, 25-17, 25-9 and 25-21, 25-16, 25-10).

“Our goal will always be to win our third straight All-Filipino crown, and we will be going all out,” said Delos Santos.

The Tornadoes also swept the Power Hitters in the preliminaries but PLDT did well in closing with a two-game winning streak.

In securing the No. 6 spot, the Power Hitters downed Generika and powerhouse F2 Logistics.