Arellano stuns EAC to start NCAA women’s volley semis

MANILA, Philippines — On Friday, Emilio Aguinaldo College did not play like the number one seeded team in the NCAA Season 88 women’s volleyball competition.

And Arellano pounced on that chance to take a 1-0 lead in the round-robin semifinals round, shocking the Lady Generals, 14-25, 25-12, 25-20, 25-16, at the Arena in San Juan.

When the Lady Chiefs finally shrugged off the jitters for making it to the final four for the first time–and being on national TV–they became simply hard to stop.

“First time nila sa TV (game) kaya nga sabi ko nga, nagpunta tayo dito hindi para magpa-cute, kundi para manalo (It’s their first time to be on TV so I told them they are not here to be cute but to win),” said head coach Roberto Javier after the game.

And that they did.

Arellano got over a jarring 14-25 start and scored three straight sets with Menchie Tuberia, Danna Henson and Angelica Legacion leading the way.

“Sinabi ko sa kanila na dapat ibigay na ang dapat ibigay, pilitin natin (I told them to give all what they had, let’s force this),” added Javier as his squad became only the second team to defeat EAC this season.

Tuberia had a game-high 12 points, while Legacion added 11 — all from spikes — and put the Lady Chiefs comfortably ahead 23-15 in the final set.

Henson stepped up with 10 points to help Arellano finish off EAC in the third set, 25-23.

The Lady Generals, the best serving team in the league, had nine aces but gave away 10 points service errors to compound their error woes.

EAC, which found itself down 0-1 in the semifinals after going 8-1 in the eliminations, had 42 whopping errors which keyed in its doom.