Crossovers enter tough stretch at a high after clipping HD Spikers

Eya Laure (left, photo above) chases down every ball in the stretch and comes up big for Chery Tiggo, finishing with 26 points, including the game-winning ace. —AUGUST DELA CRUZ

Eya Laure sees battling seasoned teams as a good experience as Chery Tiggo approaches the tailend of the elimination round of the Premier Volleyball League All-Filipino conference and the battle for playoff berths heats up.

Veteran teams are what the Crossovers have left on their schedule, and they just gave themselves the steam they need after crossing out another formidable side in Cignal on Tuesday, 17-25, 25-19, 21-25, 25-22, 16-14, at PhilSports Arena in Pasig City where Laure led a dogged comeback.

“We are still a young team, learning,” Laure said after a sterling 26-point night. “Right now we are just absorbing the good things we can get. We will bring those to our next games and leave out the bad things.”

The Crossovers won the last two sets, claiming their seventh win in eight matches after erasing match point at 14-13 with Laure on the firing end. Her second ace wrapped up the marathon two-hour and 13-minute match.

It was the fifth straight win for Chery Tiggo, which missed middle blocker Imee Hernandez, who has a feared ACL tear and would most likely be out when the Crossovers close out against F2 Logistics on Nov. 25, powerhouse Creamline on Nov. 28 and Choco Mucho on Dec. 2 in Iloilo.

That’s a back-breaking stretch that certainly won’t make the Crossovers’ journey to the semifinals easy.

But with the current success that they are experiencing—and the way they are playing—it seems achievable.

“What we are imparting [to the players] like in the previous games is the never-say-die attitude. I told them that until no one has reached 25 (points), it’s not over,” said KungFu Reyes, who is calling the shots in lieu of head coach Aaron Velez. Cignal’s five game winning streak was also halted as the HD Spikers dropped to 6-3.

Chery Tiggo also drew 18 points from Princess Robles, with Mylene Paat and Cza Carandang chipping in with 11 points each as Jas Nabor had 21 excellent sets.

Meanwhile, Petro Gazz snapped a long losing streak with a 25-22, 19-25, 25-16, 26-24 win over a hard-fighting Farm Fresh side to stay mathematically in the hunt to play past the classification phase.

The Angels, though, will be pounded by a lot of pressure in their last two games if they hope to keep their shot at a semifinal berth.

“The pressure will always be there, so we just have to be mindful of that. We can’t say that there is no pressure,” coach Timmy Sto. Tomas said.

“We have to acknowledge that and we have to work around that pressure. It’s the same every day, we’ll keep on working hard.”Petro Gazz had a 62-49 attack advantage against the Foxies, who dropped to a 1-8 card. INQ