Reeling from its first loss in the 2025 Spikers’ Turf Invitational Conference, Criss Cross bounced back in dominant fashion, trouncing ProVolley Academy, 25-9, 25-9, 25-13, to revive its Finals hopes on Monday at the Filoil EcoOil Centre in San Juan.
The King Crunchers improved to 2-1 in the round-robin semifinals of the league, organized by Sports Vision and backed by Alpha Insurance, Premiere EMS, Buffalo’s Wings N’ Things, Black Mamba, and Arena Plus.
They now sit in solo third place behind undefeated teams Savouge Aesthetics and Kindai University.
Criss Cross will look to notch its second straight win tomorrow when the action moves to Ynares Center Montalban in Rizal, facing Savouge in the 5:00 PM main game.
(C) Spikers’ Turf Images
“We saw ‘yung mga pagkukulang namin against Kindai. We saw the stuff that we can improve on and the stuff that we can add din sa team. So this game, we just put those adjustments in place and tried to play everybody para sa next games, nandoon na ‘yung experience,” said King Crunchers middle blocker Gian Glorioso.
Head coach Tai Bundit had the luxury of utilizing all his available players against the youthful Aussies, with everyone contributing to the swift victory.
Glorioso delivered his best performance yet after recovering from a back injury. Meanwhile, Noel Kampton, Ysay Marasigan, Chu Njigha, and the rest of the King Crunchers also made their presence felt.
With ProVolley Academy closing the gap to 12-17 on a block by Mikey Strbac on Rex Intal, Criss Cross put the pedal to the metal to finish the job.
Francis Saura answered for the King Crunchers, putting Intal on the service line and steadying their offense. Njigha and Saura combined for points to reach 24-12, sealing the dominant bounce-back triumph after last Saturday’s loss to Kindai University.
(C) Spikers’ Turf Images
“‘Yung mindset namin is to give ProVolley ‘yung match na kumbaga, kahit sino man ang kalaban, the biggest respect that we can give is give our best,” added Glorioso.
ProVolley Academy (0-3) will face fellow winless UST-Gameville tomorrow at 3:00 PM, with both teams aiming to stay alive in the battle for third place.
Kindai University and Cignal will open the Rizal triple-header at 1:00 PM.
Games air live on One Sports and One Sports+, as well as through the Pilipinas Live app, which offers video-on-demand options. Matches will also be streamed via spikersturf.ph.
