Caught the second UAAP Women's Volleyball match between National University and the University of Santo Tomas. Both teams came off different results on opening weekend. The Lady Bulldogs lost a five-setter to Adamson while UST shocked a lot of folks with an opening day win over La Salle (also in five sets).
I've seen this NU team grow by leaps and bounds in the past two years and they are simply bursting with a lot of confidence. The height and talent is there but what propels them is the emotion they display on the court. Normally you would want a team to temper their passion as it eats up some energy but they simply feed off it.
After UST avoided a straight sets sweep with a win in the third set 25-23, instead of crumbling like they did in their first game against Adamson, they played great defense at the net while Cai Nepomuceno scored on a number of offspeed attacks. NU had an answer for everything that UST tried to do. Myla Pablo, Ivy Perez, Aiko Urdas, and Dindin Santiago played inspired volleyball and the Tigresses were out if it even if they forced two turnovers to make it 21-9 in the fourth set.
I thought that that was a great way to answer the third set loss -- by playing good defense and killing UST's spirit until their game spiralled out of control. Tigresses coach Odjie Mamon tried to rally his girls but the fight was out of them as NU took the game for their first win of the season.
As for UST, I liked Pamela Lastimosa's game. She'll be a huge component for this team for years to come.
As for NU, I figure it has been a difficult adjustment for Nepomuceno as she has been overshadowed by her other teammates. But when it was winning time, she was there (she scattered her 11 points across the four sets).
The weekend games will be mighty interesting.
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Happy Birthday to NU Athletic Director Junel Baculi. Where's the pakain?
If NU can play like the way they did against UST they should have been second to DSLU instead of Blue Eagles. The problem is, they cannot maintain a good serve and their setter Perez should be changed if setting is not good. Perez seems to be tired easily because of blocking so the setting is sacrificed. Their coach should always remind the spikers that not all the times the libero gets the ball if the ball is infront of the spiker farther than the libero. Most of the spikers always want to hit the ball but has difficulty in receiving, digging or setting to another spiker. A good player must be able to assist in all areas like receiving, digging, blocking, setting. Lastly, they should master their serving ability to make a point not to give a point to the
ReplyDeleteopponent.