IRIGA City finally snapped a four-game skid by beating Victoria Sports-University of Santo Tomas (UST), 25-19, 25-21, 25-20, in the Chooks-to-Go Philippine Superliga (PSL) Grand Prix on Thursday at the FilOil Flying V Centre in San Juan City.
The Lady Oragons, who opened their Grand Prix campaign with a win, completed their conquest of the Tigresses in 75 minutes.
The victory gave the Lady Oragons a berth in the quarterfinals—with only one squad getting eliminated in the nine-team conference.
“I told my players that this game is very important and we have to win so we’ll have a chance to improve our ranking and avoid facing the top team in the quarterfinals,” Iriga City Head Coach Parley Tupaz said.
Serbian Tamara Kmezic again carried the load for Iriga with 20 points on 17 spikes, two service aces and one block.
Janeca Lana chipped in nine points and five receptions, while the team’s other import, Saam Miyagawa, contributed seven hits and setter Shyrra Cabriana made 13 excellent sets, four points and five digs.
After Iriga convincingly took the 2-0 set lead, UST tried to fight back in the third set and built a 16-12 cushion and a precarious 18-16 advantage. But Kmezic scored five in the Lady Oragons’ 9-2 run to complete the sweep.
Carla Sandoval and Dimdim Pacres finished with 14 and 11 points, respectively, for the Tigresses, who, with a 0-6 record, must win all their remaining matches to avoid elimination.
The Lady Oragons, however, will still face heavyweights Petron and F2 Logistics while their closest pursuer—Sta. Lucia Realty—has to beat Cignal, Cocolife and Generika-Ayala to avoid claiming the No. 8 seed in the next round.
Sta. Lucia and Cignal faced each other late Thursday.
Tupas said Lana is now filling the void created by Grethcel Soltones, who was slapped a one-year ban after playing in an exhibition match that was not sanctioned by the league.
Although Lana’s contribution was far from Soltones’s usual production, Tupas said they would still gladly take it.