Defending champion College of Saint Benilde overcame a bad start en route to a 20-25, 25-14, 25-18, 25-22 win over Letran College Saturday in the Shakey's Super League Collegiate Pre-Season Championship at the Filoil EcoOil Centre in San Juan.

The win handed Saint Benilde its first win in Pool C play but it had to work for it after recovering from a deficit in the fourth set and getting the job done in an hour and 59 minutes of action.

"We didn't play good. Probably we're tired or we underestimated our opponents or we're just too eager to finish the game," Lady Blazers head coach Jerry Yee said.

"We'll see (what happens) when we play our second or third games," he added.

It appeared for a while that the match would go into a fifth set when the Lady Knights imposed an 18-14 lead.

But Saint Benilde stormed back and got to within 21-22 before Gayle Pascual took charge.

Pascual led the way with 14 points on 12 attacks while Jade Gentapa and Michelle Gamit each had 13 and Zamantha Nolasco backed them up with 11.

It was Letran's second straight defeat following a three-set beatdown it suffered at the hands of sister school University of Santo Tomas.

Gia Marcel Maquilang hit 25 points for Letran.