Mouth-watering series sealed with Bulldogs, Tigresses advancing

Alyssa Solomon sneaks in a kill against a UP double block. —CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

National University (NU) and University of Santo Tomas churned out straight-sets victories over separate foes on Sunday and advanced to face different sides in a pair of mouth-watering match-ups to make up the semifinals of the 2024 Shakey’s Super League Collegiate Pre-season Championship.

Bella Belen and Alyssa Solomon hammered the University of the Philippines defense in leading the Bulldogs to a 25-12, 25-22, 25-17 victory and march into a final four match with unbeaten Far Eastern University (FEU), even as the Golden Tigresses relied team effort to get past University of the East, 25-22, 25-21, 25-21, and seal a date with bitter UAAP rival La Salle.

The match between the Lady Spikers and the Tigresses is set on Wednesday, while the National U-Far Eastern KO game happens on Saturday.

“We don’t want to waste what we have worked so very hard for,” Solomon, who finished with 10 points, said in Filipino as the Bulldogs never gave the Lady Maroons a chance. “We want to apply what we have learned in practice into all our games.”

National U is trying to win this event for the third straight time and keep alive a string of successes dating back to the UAAP last year where the Bulldogs swept the Tigresses in the title series.

The NU-FEU match is a replay of the National Invitationals won by the Bulldogs last July.

Santo Tomas, meanwhile, battled from six points down in the third set before pulling out the win, with Angge Poyos leading a 13-3 windup.

Poyos finished with 15 points and Regina Jurado 12 as Santo Tomas seems to have gathered all the momentum it needs heading into the series with the Lady Spikers, a dangerous lot bannered by Angel Canino and Shevana Laput.

“We just played composed, even while we were staring at a huge deficit,” Poyos, last season’s top UAAP rookie, said in Filipino. “We kept in mind that communication on the floor is very important.”