Team captain Detdet Pepito swears that the bashing University of Santo Tomas (UST) received after its stunning win over defending champion De La Salle University in the University Athletic Association of the Philippines Season 86 women’s volleyball tournament fueled the team’s determination to win again.

“First of all, thank you to the bashers,” Detdet Pepito said after the Golden Tigresses eliminated the Lady Spikers on Sunday evening.

“We really made them an inspiration. Because in our first game, there were many of them mocking us,” Pepito said after their 25-20, 16-25, 25-20, 19-25, 15-7 win over the Lady Spikers at the Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City.

“But we showed them in the first game. We saw our capacity as a team and we really just worked for it.”

The Golden Tigresses turned many heads at the beginning of the season as they hit the ground running with a nine-game win streak despite the departure of their senior, former Rookie of the Year Eya Laure when she decided to go pro.

The squad from Espana, mainly composed of freshmen and sophomores — with Pepito being the only one in her junior year — shocked the tournament when they won against La Salle and National University, the two powerhouse teams that clashed in the Season 85 finals.

Their latest feat before advancing to the finals was when they snatched the twice-to-beat advantage against the Lady Spikers to end their elimination round campaign.

Heading into the finals, the Golden Tigresses are raring to rewrite history as exactly five years ago, also at the MOA Arena, the Golden Tigresses also eliminated the Lady Spikers in five sets.

But they experienced heartbreak in the finals.

The Bea De Leon and Kat Tolentino-led Ateneo got the best of EJ Laure, Sisi Rondina, and the rest of the Tigresses in their Season 81 best-of-three finals encounter.

“In 2019, as they say ‘history repeats itself,’ but this time we will change history,”  UST head coach Kungfu Reyes said.

“We just work hard everyday. Whatever you see in the games, we work for it every day. More repetitions. So those flukes, we repeat those flukes a thousand times. There’s many times that these players get scolded. These flukes, we work hard for it,” Reyes said.

It will also be the first time in 20 years that La Salle or Ateneo will not have a finals appearance, as NU and Far Eastern University are fighting on the other side of the bracket for the last finals seat.