Photo from UAAP
MANILA, Philippines—National University’s three-peat bid is off to a good start after eking out a four-set win over Uniersity of Santo Tomas, 27-25, 23-25, 25-19, 27-25, in the UAAP Season 82 men’s volleyball tournament Wednesday at Mall of Asia Arena.
Angelo Almendras led the defending champions with 20 points while Clarence Camposano and James Natividad added 19 and 11 points, respectively.
With the Bulldogs suffering a massive exodus of stars in Bryan Bagunas, Kim Malabunga, Madzlan Gampong, Francis Saura due to graduation, head coach Dante Alinsunurin said that they had to change their approach this season and against the Tiger Spikers.
“I told them that our offense will go down quite a bit so we should focus on our defense more,” said Alinsunurin in Filipino.
“There will be lapses but after a few games we’ll be able to smoothen things out on our defensive system and our blocking.”
The Bulldogs did have some growing pains on the defensive end but they still managed to tally 10 scoring blocks against UST’s nine.
National team member Joshua Umandal finished with 25 points for the Tiger Spikers while Jhun Senoron and skipper Wewe Medina added 15 and 14 points, respectively.