WOMEN’S: AIR UP THERE
It turns out that being 6’7’’ does come with its perks.
Although starting off relatively slow in their first matchup loss, Jaja Santiago showed how devastating a weapon she could be when she dominated the defending champions, AdU.
The Lady Bulldogs fell to FEU in their first match, 18-21, 16-21. Jaja, and her partner, Fatima General, a service specialist for NU during the indoor sports, didn’t seem to get a feel for the sand court and each other, allowing FEU’s Pons-Simborio tandem to pounce on them.
Though they lost the first set of their match against AdU, Santiago and General gained valuable momentum towards the end of the set where they forced several deadlocks. They would find several cracks in Adamson’s gameplan to exploit and eventually take the next two sets quite handily, 19-21, 21-16, 15-9.
Santiago allows NU to play more like a men’s team as she can block attacks and funnel them to General for easier receptions leading to powerful attacks from Jaja.
If NU continues to establish this style of play through the rest of the season, the Lad
If NU continues to establish this style of play through the rest of the season, the Lady Bulldogs should have no problems bullying past the rest of the field and landing themselves on one of the Final Four spots.
MEN’S
The NU Bulldogs split the first two games of their title defense as they faced two of last year’s Final Four teams in AdU and FEU.
Adamson beat the defending champions to the clutch as NU’s Joseph Tipay and Edwin Tolentino couldn’t win crucial points and came away with a 1-21, 19-21 loss. The Bulldogs were on the verge of going 0-2 in their debut but found their groove midway through the second set to steal the game from a fired up FEU tandem, 14-21, 21-21, 15-12. FEU was up, 12-10 in the deciding set before NU claimed the next five points with spectacular play from Edwin Tolentino.
With the rest of the league beefing up, the defending champs have higher hurdles to jump if they want to take the title back to their campus. Edwin Tolentino’s veteran leadership and the immensely athletic Joseph Tipay are a tough tandem to beat.
