After dropping its opening day assignment, the Ateneo de Manila Lady Eagles vented its frustrations on the Far Eastern University Lady Tamaraws Sunday evening at the Rizal Memorial Badminton Hall, five matches to none.
The Lady Tamaraws have yet to win a single match after also falling to the De La Salle Lady Shuttlers in a five-match sweep.
Bianca Carlos opened up the winning column for Ateneo, ousting Michal Duquilla in the first match after two sets, 21-11 and 21-17. Carlos showed mastery with her drops early on, making Duquilla run all over the court. Duquilla didn’t have an answer for the excellent placing of Carlos as the Lady Eagle cruised for the win.
The second match of the team tie featured two hard hitters from both teams, namely Cassandra Lim of Ateneo and Lady Tamaraw Iris Molina. As expected, the first game was close with exchanges of hard stabs from both ladies. The game was tied at match point, but Lim escaped with the win after errors from Molina, 23-21.
Lim, however, appeared to have slightly sprained her right ankle midway through the first game and this gave her problems from then on. Molina capitalized from Lim’s impaired mobility and took the second game, 20-22. The Lady Eagle then made adjustments and endured her nagging injury to dominate the third set, 21-12, to take the match.
It was total domination by the Katipunan-based squad from this point as they win the next three matches in convincing fashion.
The Atenean duo of Bianca Carlos and Trixie Malibiran defeated Lady Tamaraws Michal Duquilla and Maridel Rivera in just two games, 21-14 and 21-15. Malibiran showed no signs of slowing down after coming back from her season-ending knee injury in the previous year.
Geva and Jana De Vera of Ateneo then took over with the victory versus the Tamaraw duo of Iris Molina and Klowie Garcia in a two-setter match with a score of 21-18 and 21-14 in the first and second game respectively.
Samantha Ramos then completed the sweep for Ateneo after winning against Maridel Rivera in straight games, 21-15 and 21-9. The youngster controlled the tempo the whole match as well as keeping Rivera out of striking distance.
