Adamson Baby Falcons celebrate Game 2 in the UAAP girls volleyball finals. –UAAP PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines—Adamson broke Nazareth School of National University’s 23-game winning streak and forced a rubber match for the UAAP Season 85 girls’ volleyball championship.
The Baby Falcons trounced the Lady Bullpups in five highly contested sets, 21-25, 25-20, 20-25, 25-21, 15-13, at Paco Arena on Saturday to tie the best-of-three Finals to one game a piece.
Game 3 is on Monday at 9 am at the same Manila venue.
After both teams figured in a push-and-pull to tie the game at two sets a piece, Adamson gained a crucial advantage, 10-9, in the decided which ballooned into a three-point lead after Nazareth School committed two straight violations.
Felicity Sagaysay converted a successful kill to end the match.
“I told them that they need to be courageous. We can’t bring just our skills against NU, our emotions have to be in check as well,” Adamson coach JP Yude said in Filipino.
“We’ll train the same way. We’ll just be fixing our lapses so it’ll just be the same. We’ll take some rest and maybe later or tomorrow, we’ll train. Come Monday, we’ll fight again.”
UAAP girls volleyball MVP Kianne Olango. –UAAP PHOTO
Despite the loss, the Lady Bullpups came home with a plethora of hardware with Kianne Olango winning both the Most Valuable Player and Best Opposite Hitter plums. Celine Marchs and Abegail Pono also won Second Best Outside Spiker and Best Setter, respectively.
Over at the other end, the Baby Falcons also got awards of their own with Juris Manuel taking home Best Libero and Shaina Nitura being hailed as the First Best Outside Spiker.
The First and Second Best Middle Blocker were awarded to Far Eastern University-Diliman’s Klarisse Loresco and University of Santo Tomas’ Margarette Altea.