NU Girl Bulldogs rejoice after successful the UAAP Season 86 ladies’s volleyball championship with a sweep of UST Tigresses. -MARLO CUETO/INQUIRER.web
All of it got here right down to that third body Wednesday night time, with Nationwide College (NU) dealing with set level in Recreation 2 of the UAAP Season 86 ladies’s volleyball match.
Bella Belen, who had earlier received her second MVP trophy, steeled the Girl Bulldogs shaken resolve with a kill to increase the set.
However Xyza Gula, the College of Santo Tomas (UST) dynamo who once more unloaded fireworks off the bench and steered the Tigresses to a confidence-inflating second set victory, put her staff on the verge of an important set win with one other level. Belen responded with back-to-back kills. And when Gula tried to resuscitate the Tigresses’ hopes, NU center blocker Sheena Toring shut her down. That shut down UST for good, too.
Pouncing on the Tigresses’ winded morale, the Girl Bulldogs dominated the fourth set and sealed a 25-23, 23-25, 27-25, 25-16, victory in entrance of twenty-two,515 followers at Mall of Asia Area to finish their redemption tour and seize a second crown in three years.
“Ever since, this staff’s character has actually been stable,” coach Norman Miguel stated after the sport. “After they say the gamers say they are going to bounce again, they are going to actually bounce again. That’s what units [the Lady Bulldogs] aside from the remaining.”
Alyssa Solomon proved her mettle anew in Recreation 2, firing 27 factors on a 20-of-37 kill price whereas additionally scoring off 4 blocks and three aces. Throw in her 17 factors in NU’s Recreation 1 victory and Solomon was a simple selection for Finals MVP.
“This was now or by no means,” Solomon stated. “My mindset earlier than the sport was to play my greatest [so] this might be our final sport this season.”
Belen added 19 factors, 11 digs, and 9 receptions for NU, which additionally bought 13 factors from Vange Alinsug and 11 from Toring.
The victory of the ladies’s squad made it a golden double for NU on Wednesday as the lads’s staff prolonged its reign to a fourth 12 months after ending off UST of their title showdown earlier within the day.
Struggle theme
NU has been within the Finals the final three seasons, dropping final 12 months’s championship tussle with the La Salle Girl Spikers. That defeat spurred the Girl Bulldogs, who made redemption their struggle theme this season. “The journey wasn’t straightforward,” Miguel stated. “We confronted superb groups. We had losses … however our need to redeem [ourselves and win] the title was at all times entire and that made us work laborious.”
Santo Tomas was already handicapped by the damage to Angge Poyos, who rolled her ankle in Recreation 1 and began the sport on one good leg. She scored a degree in a really restricted position. However the spunk and coronary heart that delivered the younger and undersized Tigresses to a surprising Finals look nobody noticed coming appeared prepared to pull the Girl Bulldogs to a deciding sport.
NU, nonetheless, proved too composed even when cornered at a essential level of the match.
