COLLEGE of St. Benilde worked on its defense to stymie Far Eastern U’s attacks then flourished in transition plays to take a step closer to securing the V-League Women’s Collegiate Challenge crown with a 25-18, 25-18, 25-16 victory in the opener of their best-of-three series at the Paco Arena in Manila yesterday.
The Lady Blazers kept the Lady Tamaraws’ hitters in check with their solid net and floor defense with no one able to churn out double-digit outputs for the Morayta-based squad.
Faida Bakanke finished with just eight points that proved to be the leading score for FEU.
In contrast, CSB drew 13 and 12 points from Jade Gentapa and Gayle Pascual, respectively, with the latter capping her remarkable all-around stint with 10 excellent digs.
“Titibayan pa namin ‘yung defense, lalo na sa blocking. So far, it worked in Game 1 and we hope we’ll be able to do it again in the next,” said CSB assistant coach Jay Chua.
The Lady Blazers gun for the clincher at 4 p.m. tomorrow (Friday).
Chenie Tagaod and Keisha Bedonia settled for six markers apiece for the Lady Tamaraws.
After dominating the first two sets via the same scoreline, the Lady Blazers raced to a 22-11 bulge in the third and the NCAA champions never looked back to complete the rout.
