These two victories achieved by the University of Santo Tomas (UST) over the past week proved crucial to the school’s participation in the UAAP Season 86 volleyball tournament, both in the men’s division and feminine.
For rookie Angeline Poyos, however, there is still a lot to do now that the Tigresses have put the target on their backs by sweeping the first round of the women’s preliminaries.
“I know we have to work on a lot of things and we have to make a lot of adjustments in the next few games; we can’t relax because there’s still the second round,” said Poyos, who was named the college writers’ player of the week along with Tigers star Josh Ybañez.
A lot of the adjustments will be made near the net, where the Tigresses have a lot of work to do.
Concluding the first round with a 7-0 (win-loss) card, UST had to fight back from an early deficit in the fourth set, then go through a test before cementing a 25-18, 25- 22, 15. -25, 28-26 victory against Adamson last Saturday.
The Lady Falcons came to life the same way most teams found some success against the Tigresses: by hammering their net defense.
The University of the Philippines did the same, making UST work hard to achieve its 25-22, 25-20, 26-24 shutout victory last March 13.
“We fell behind with our blocks, but we were able to adjust each set,” said Poyos, who had 22 points against the Maroons.
The Tigresses need their vast repertoire of undersized forwards to finally anchor the Lady Falcons game.
“Knowing that…we are not that big, we use that as motivation to raise (our level) and do better in our next matches,” said Poyos, the former UST high school star, after the victory against Adamson.
But UST will have to review its blocking, in particular with the La Salle Lady Spikers (6-1), second in the running, who seem to be thirsty for revenge against the Tigresses.
No complacency
UST handed the defending champions their only loss in the tournament thus far, and in La Salle’s four victories since that defeat, the Lady Spikers have continually referenced that upset.
Team captain Bernadett Pepito and crafty playmaker Cassie Carballo also said the Tigresses still need to clean up their game.
“We can’t be complacent because we could lose (the championship lead) once we relax,” Carballo said.
Pepito, who protected the field with 21 recoveries and 12 excellent receptions against Adamson, agreed with Carballo, even after the Tigresses had their best start since 2007.
“We still have a lot of things to improve and we have a lot of gaps to fill,” she said. “We can’t be satisfied with the ranking right now because we know that many teams want revenge on us. So we need to triple the efforts in training to be able to achieve better results in the second round.
Poyos averaged 20 points per game during this 2-0 week for the Tigresses. Ybañez averaged 22.5 points in UST’s two outings last week — also against UP and Adamson — to revitalize the Tigers’ championship hopes that had previously hit a snag. The UST men’s team improved its record to 4-3 to move into fourth place, and Ybañez said it was more than his efforts that brought the Tigers out of less than a . 500.
“We won as a team,” he said.
“I’m happy because I saw my teammates’ will to win,” he added. INQ