UST on a high ahead of first Final Four stint in five years

Photo by Tristan Tamayo/INQUIRER.net

For five years, the UAAP women’s volleyball Final Four sorely lacked a golden hue as University of Santo Tomas failed to enter the big dance since Season 74 when it finished as the third seed with a 9-5 card.

It has been a half-decade’s worth of futility before head coach Kung Fu Reyes was finally able to get his Golden Tigresses to the promised ball.

Reyes said his Golden Tigresses are riding a full-season’s momentum going into the semifinal round.

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“The players are determined, they’re focused, but we still have so many things to prove because this is the Final Four,” said Reyes Wednesday after training at UST’s Quadricentennial Pavilion.

“This is a different feeling but definitely the players’ morale is high and in terms of confidence level we’re at 90 percent, actually we’re at 100 percent. We had a pretty good elimination round.”

The Golden Tigresses finished the elimination stages with a third-best 9-5 record, the same card when they last qualified in the Final Four back in 2012, with a thriller capping off their campaign.

READ: All eyes on NU-UST clash as FEU clinches Final 4 berth

UST pulled off a momentous comeback against National University, clawing back from two sets down to take a five-set win 20-25, 19-25, 25-22, 25-21, 15-12.

That win left the Golden Tigresses in a state of euphoria, and Reyes said they will go into the Final Four with an air of confidence as they go up against defending champions De La Salle.

“We’ll focus on our game and not on the occasion of the Final Four, because the Final Four is a big occasion,” said Reyes. “This is our first semifinals in a long while so we’ll concentrate on our game. We all believe that we will be resilient and we’ll work for everything.”