Bella Belen is drawing strength and inspiration from former players of National University (NU) as the Lady Bulldogs’ ramp up to win the University Athletic Association of the Philippines Season 86 women’s volleyball tournament crown.

With outstanding players from the not-so-distant past rallying behind them, Belen and her teammates have expressed their iron will to beat University of Santo Tomas (UST) in their best-of-three title series beginning Saturday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.

“It makes me happy that Ate Jaja (Santiago) and our other (former) teammates watched us,” Belen said after exploding with 21 points from 16 attacks and five aces including 14 digs in the Lady Bulldogs’ 25-13, 27-25, 25-15 98-minute victory over Far Eastern University in their do-or-die duel last Wednesday.

The most noteworthy ex-NU player who showed up was Jaja Santiago, who is now undergoing Japanese naturalization.

“We are not only doing this for us, but also for our former teammates, and other players of NU that didn’t have the chance to get a championship. So, we’re making them our inspiration.”

The win propelled NU to its third straight finals appearance.

Last year, De La Salle University, ousted by UST in their own Final Four pairing, beat NU.

NU head coach Norman Miguel insists that the Lady Bulldogs were awakened by their stunning defeat against the Lady Tamaraws they proved in the decider that they — and not the Morayta-based spikers — deserve to be in the finals.

With the threat of UST super rookie Angge Poyos looming, Miguel swears they are in for a tough grind.

“We already know that starting tomorrow our preparation will be more extreme. Because you can’t just belittle UST’s character,” Miguel said.

“So we’ll start with scouting from videos, and then we’ll work on technical skills so that we can counter them.”