Games tomorrow:
(Candon City Arena)
4 p.m. — Petro Gazz vs Farm Fresh
6:30 p.m. — Akari vs Creamline
Cignal dug deep in its bag full of tricks to claw back from six points down in the fourth set and turn back Chery Tiggo, 25-19, 20-25, 25-18, 25-21, for back-to-back wins in the Premier Volleyball League (PVL) All-Filipino Conference Thursday at the FilOil EcoOil Centre in San Juan.
Fueled by their solid floor defense and tremendous patience, the HD Spikers outworked the Crossovers in a battle of spurts to remain unbeaten in two games and pull level with idle Akari and PLDT on top of the leaderboard.
Skipper Ces Molina led the way for Cignal with another superb outing as the veteran winger scored 12 of her 13 points on kills while contributing on defense with nine digs and seven excellent receptions.
Vanie Gandler hammered all of her 12 markers from attacks and had nine excellent receptions while Riri Meneses also had 12 points including consecutive quick kills to push the HD Spikers at match point.
Down, 4-10, to start the fourth frame, Cignal unleashed a blistering 7-0 assault to take the driver’s seat, 11-10. Chery Tiggo answered back as the two squads exchanged blows in a mad race to the finish.
The HD Spikers shattered a 20-20 deadlock with consecutive points before Seth Rodriguez stopped the Crossovers’ bleeding with a hit.
Meneses quickly answered with two straight points before Chery Tiggo surrendered the game after committing a net violation following a misreceive.
“We practice that every training, to embrace the pressure and learn how to close out a set even in a grind-out situation,” said prized libero Dawn Macandili-Catindig, who had 23 excellent digs.
Cignal outgunned Chery Tiggo on attacks, 58-48, all thanks to top setter Gel Cayuna’s 20 excellent sets. The HD Spikers also took advantage of the Crossovers’ spotty reception to land 10 service winners.
Still, Cignal mentor Shaq delos Santos was far from satisfied.
“We’re still far from the kind of team that we want to be. We still have a lot of work to do, especially in our communication. We had a lot of miscommunication during the game especially in our transition going to attack. Good thing we were able to convert those out of system balls,” he said.
“I guess the other one is the consistency of our reception to create good set plays. We have to play better, be consistent and have that mindset of fighting until the end,” added Delos Santos as he lamented his team’s showing in the second frame.
Chery Tiggo failed to capitalize on its second set win as it slid to a 1-1 mark.Ara Galang paced the Crossovers with 13 points off 11 kills, one kill block and one ace. Ces Roble and Rodriguez had 12 markers each while Rhose Dapol added 10 in a losing effort.