Cignal turned to its grizzled veterans to spoil Jolina dela Cruz’s career game as it humbled F2 Logistics, 25-23, 22-25, 26-24, 26-24, for a fifth straight win in the Premier Volleyball League All-Filipino Conference yesterday at the FilOil EcoOil Centre in San Juan.
Jovelyn Gonzaga and Ces Molina delivered the finishing blows in the tightly contested fourth set to give the HD Spikers their sixth win in eight outings and remain on the right course for a semifinal seat.
Molina finished with 22 points with 20 coming off attacks including the game-winning hit in the two-hour, 31-minute encounter.
Gonzaga backed her up with 15 points and 11 digs while Vanie Gandler and Roselyn Doria added 13 and 12 points, respectively, as Cignal handed the reeling Cargo Movers their second straight defeat.
Cignal stole the third frame, coming back from a 21-24 deficit with Gandler and Molina scoring two points each before Gonzaga scored off a kill block on Jovelyn Fernandez.
The HD Spikers had a late scare in the nip-and-tuck fourth frame after squandering two match points. Then came Gonzaga with a through the block kill followed by Molina’s coup de grace.
“I’m really happy with the effort they gave in this game. To be honest, when we were down, 21-24, I just told them to believe that we will win this game, we just need to work for it,” Cignal head coach Shaq delos Santos said.
“Thankfully, we got the win. The player really wanted this win.”
Dela Cruz posted a personal-best 30 points built on 28 kills, one kill block and one ace while adding seven excellent receptions but was not enough to save F2 Logistics from sliding down to a 4-4 slate.
Ara Galang had 17 points, 14 digs and 15 excellent receptions while Fernandez had eight points for the Cargo Movers.
Meanwhile, Nxled relied on a series of scoring bursts to turn back winless Galeries Tower, 25-22-25-18, 25-17, for the club’s first back-to-back victories.
Jho Maraguinot was sharp on offense, punching in 11 kills to finish with game-high 13 points to lead the Chameleons to a 3-5 slate just half a game behind sister team Akari (3-4) to stay in the hunt for a Final Four seat.
Down, 16-21, in the opening frame, Nxled unleashed a 9-1 closing rally to steal the frame. The Chameleons also battled the Highrisers in a tight second set before Chiara Permentilla ignited a 7-0 blitz to break an 18-18 deadlock before setter Kamille Cal wrapped up the frame with back-to-back aces.
Japanese head coach Taka Minowa felt that the Nxled could’ve done better.
“Actually, from the first and second sets, our players they were moving tight. I think they were kinda afraid to play inside the court against Galeries. So actually, I wanna say (it’s) a bad game even though we win 3-0,” Minowa said.
“Our purpose is (to) improve more but they tried to just focus only on winning which is why the players were moving tight. Also, they didn’t have (good) communication today but in the third set it was very good, they tried. They tried talking inside the court.”
Krich Macaslang pumped up her teammates with her energetic demeanor inside the court while chipping in 11 points, Lycha Ebon got 10 points and Camille Victoria tallied eight points including three kill blocks as the Chameleons played sans May Luna. The winger skipped the game to attend the wake of her mother.
