THE ATENEO Blue Eagles emerged victorious against the San Beda College (SBC) Red Lions in three sets, 25-23, 25-16, 27-25, on Wednesday, September 6, at the FilOil Flying V Centre in San Juan City.
The Blue Eagles now have a record of 2-0 in the inaugural season of the Premier Volleyball League (PVL) Men’s Collegiate Conference.
Marck Espejo scored a game-high 15 points with an extremely efficient 75% attack success rate. In just his second start, Gian Glorioso notched four kill blocks and eight rebounds off 14 blocking attempts, along with 13 points. Setter Ish Polvorosa recorded 33 of 77 excellent sets as well as six points.
Head coach Oliver Almadro chose to field Espejo, Glorioso, Polvorosa, Karl Baysa, Ron Medalla, Chu Njigha, John Rivera, and Manuel Sumanguid at libero. This was the same line-up as in the first game.
The game opened with a very competitive first set. After a few unsuccessful attacks by the Blue and White, Medalla was brought in early to replace captain Baysa (8-10). SBC then maintained the lead until the second technical timeout (14-16). Ateneo turned it around deep in the set as a spike through a block by Rivera forced the Red Lions to call a late timeout (22-20). An over receive by San Beda seemed to give Ateneo a chance ball, but miscommunication led to the ball going straight to the floor to tie the game (23-23). Ultimately, it was a misplaced down-the-line hit from SBC that ended the set in favor of the Blue Eagles (25-23).
The second set began close as well, with a one-handed block by Glorioso on a Red Lion quick attack which tied the score (8-8). Further in, SBC went on a 4-1 run to take the three-point lead (9-12). The Blue Eagles went on a huge scoring run to take back the three-point lead of their own off a Njigha kill-block by the second technical timeout (16-13). The Blue Eagles were able to pull away from the Red Lions with Polvorosa scoring a service ace to take the second set (25-16).
Ateneo took a three-point advantage early in the third set, heading into the first technical timeout (8-5). However, the Red Lions able to rally back, highlighted by a denial on Medalla’s attack to tie the set (15-15). Coach Almadro then decided to make key substitutions with Baysa and Paulo Trinidad, coming in for Rivera and Glorioso with the game on the line (22-22). The game continued to stay close as a service error by Medalla led to another deadlock (24-24). After SBC scored on a cross-court kill to tie the match once more, Njigha scored off a quick play to win back a match point for Ateneo (26-25). Glorioso scored Ateneo’s final point through a kill-block to finish the set and the match (27-25).
“We’re taking it slowly, but we have to be sure in what we’re doing,” said head coach Almadro after the game. When asked about the match-up against UST in their next game, coach Almadro said, “We’ll prepare more [because] UST is an intact team.”
Box Scores
Ateneo
Espejo – 15, Glorioso – 13, Rivera – 9, Njigha – 7, Medalla – 7, Polvorosa – 6, Baysa – 1
SBC
Patenio – 10, Santos – 9, Amagan – 7, Viray – 5, Enciso – 4, Zabala – 3, Desuyo – 2
Storify Link
https://storify.com/TheGUIDONSports/pvl-collegiate-conference
