Pocari-Air Force shook off a sluggish start and breezed past PetroGazz in the next three sets to carve out an 18-25, 25-20, 26-24, 25-21 victory and force a three-way tie for the lead in the quarterfinals of the Premier Volleyball League (PVL) Season 2 Reinforced Conference Saturday at the Filoil Flying V Center in San Juan.

Import Arielle Love and former Most Valuable Player (MVP) Myla Pablo combined for 34 of the Lady Warriors’ 57 spikes against the Angels’ 49 while banking on their blocking, 11-7, to cushion the impact of their sloppy service reception.

Love delivered 23 points, including three blocks, while Pablo also came through with three blocks and finished with 18 points for the Lady Warriors, who also drew 15 markers from Madeline Palmer and matched the BaliPure Water Defenders and BanKo Perlas Spikers’ reversals over their respective elimination-round tormentors.

BaliPure turned back Iriga-Navy, 25-17, 18-25, 20-25, 26-24, 18-16, while BanKo-Perlas dominated Tacloban, 25-22, 25-20, 25-18, to gain the headstart in the single round quarters where the top two will join early qualifiers Creamline and PayMaya in the Final Four of the season-opening conference.

Olena Lymareva-Flink hammered 21 kills and finished with 22 points while fellow import Anastasia Trach added 16 hits but the locals failed to come up big with Alyssa Layug scoring seven and Cherry Nunag adding six markers for the Angels.

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