FULLY-CHARGED CHARGERS: Unbeaten Akari blasts Nxled, nears top quarterfinal spot

Streaking Akari woke up from a first set slumber before hacking out a 21-25, 25-19, 25-17, 25-18, victory over Nxled to stay unbeaten and move closer to locking the top seed in the quarterfinals of the Premier Volleyball League (PVL) Reinforced Conference Thursday at the Philsports Arena in Pasig City.

After a sluggish opening frame, the Chargers rediscovered their rhythm for the equalizer before sustaining their momentum to hike their franchise-best win-loss record to 7-0 with just one match left in Pool D.

“All the games I think all the same. As always, the first set is very weak and today, it happened again. We really need to fix it if we’re going to be a champion team because now we’re lucky,” said Akari Japanese coach Taka Minowa, whose squad aims for a sweep on Tuesday against Farm Fresh.

American Oly Okaro blasted 28 kills and had a kill block and an ace for a game-high 30 points for Akari, which rained down 64 spike points.

Ivy Lacsina added 19 points while Michelle Cobb dished out 18 excellent sets for the Chargers, who officially eliminated their sister-team from a quarters seat contention.

The Chameleons dropped its sixth straight game for a 1-6 card despite the 16-point effort of American Meegan Hart and 11 markers of Chiara Permentilla.

In the opening match, Farm Fresh arrested a two-game slide with a dominating 25-17, 25-23, 25-20, victory that halted Capital1’s three-game roll.

The Foxies banked on Colombian Yeny Murillo’s 15 points and Trisha Tubu’s 12 to improve to a 3-4 card while sending the Solar Spikers to a 4-3 mark.

Farm Fresh also stymied the usually high-scoring Russian import Marina Tushova, who set a league-record 49 points in the previous match, to a personal tournament-low 18 points.

Meanwhile, Alas Pilipinas players will be skipping the rest of the import-laden tournament and the season-ending Invitational Conference.

PVL president and Philippine National Volleyball Federation Ricky Palou bared the news as the national team is set to play a couple of friendlies outside of its original calendar of playing in different international tournaments.

Alas Pilipinas will remain busy until September with scheduled tune-up matches against top-tier club from Japan and Korea.

“As far as I know, the games of Alas aren’t over. They still have a match against Japanese and Korean club teams here in the Philippines for the kickoff of the World Cup next year,” Palou said.

The said exhibition matches are scheduled around the second week of September. The Invitational Conference will pit the top four teams of the Reinforced Conference against a couple of foreign guest clubs.

“Technically they’ll be released around 15 September. But we’re done by then so their next appearance will be in the All-Filipino Conference, I think we will start by November,” Palou said.

PVL players donning the Alas Pilipinas jersey are Sisi Rondina and Cherry Nunag of Choco Mucho, Jema Galanza and Jia Morado-De Guzman of Creamline, Vanie Gandler and Dawn Macandili-Catindig of Cignal, Eya Laure and Jen Nierva, Fifi Sharma and Faith Nisperos of Akari, Thea Gagate of Zus Coffee, Julia Coronel of Galeries Tower, and Del Palomata of PLDT.