SUZANNE Roces shone for San Sebastian College to make a return trip to the championship round. Roces fired a career-high 32 hits as the Lady Stags went thru the wringer before edging Ateneo, 21-25, 25-22, 23-25, 25-21, 15-12, and claim their sixth finals stint in the Shakey’s V-League first conference semifinals Tuesday at the Filoil Flying V Arena in San Juan.
San Sebastian swept the best-of-three series, 2-0. Defending champion University of Santo Tomas forged a deciding Game 3 by subduing Lyceum, 25-18, 25-23, 25-22, in the other semis pairing.
Aiza Maizo registered 18 hits while Angeli Tabaquero 16 points as the Tigresses tied the semis series to one game apiece and kept their hopes alive for a third straight championship in the event organized by Sports Vision and supported by Accel, Mikasa and Mighty Bond.
The semifinals decider will be played at 4 p.m on Thursday. “Bumawi kami sa blocking, yun ang nawala sa amin sa last game. Well-executed ang mga plays ng mga bata,” said assistant mentor Vilet Ponce de Leon, who temporarily handled the UST bench with head coach Shaq delos Santos not around due to a prior commitment.
With only five blocks to show in the series opener, the Tigresses were much better this time in their net defense by scoring seven blocks, with four coming from Maizo. UST sealed the straight set win with Maizo unloaded a dizzying
running spike from out of nowhere to the middle and guest player Mary Jean Balse scoring the game-winning service ace.
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