University of Santo Tomas overcame gritty Adamson University, 25-21, 20-25, 23-25, 25-22, 15-6, to take a bounce-back win in the UAAP Season 85 Men’s Volleyball tournament, Wednesday at the PhilSports Arena in Pasig City.
The Golden Spikers go to the second spot at the moment at 3-1, just half a game behind National University, who has a game in hand.
The Soaring Falcons stayed winless after four meetings.
GBoy De Vega caught fire in the last three sets to pace UST, with middle blocker Raynier Flor doing his thing at the net to eventually bag the victory.
De Vega finished with 16 points including the match-clinching kill. Meanwhile, fellow wingers Jay Dela Noche and Josh Ybañez ended with game-high 24 and 20 markers, respectively.
UST had to adjust big time to take the win.
“The boys lost focused in the second set,” coach Odjie Mamon admitted. “Story of our life — service error, attack error ni GBoy (De Vega), tapos may time na disadvantaged kami sa tawag. Actually dapat hindi yun bearing.
“They are the ones playing on the court, pino-point lang namin, nasa labas kami so wide yung nakikita namin. Kinailangan pang mag-timeout eh. Kaya more focused pa rin kami sa internal, sa system namin,” he added.
The Golden Spikers leaned on their service game at the start of the match, using opportunities in the transition to scoring against the Soaring Falcons. Errors late in the set kept the latter in it, but back-to-back plays at the middle closed the frame for UST.
Both sides made adjustments in the second, but the season hosts got the better of the result. Adamson University took advantage of UST’s errors. That eventually led to more varied plays, including a middle kill from Joshua Mangalaman that sent the former to the set point and the equalizer.
The Golden Spikers imploded in the third set, coughing out error after error that totaled 13. The Soaring Falcons, thus, used this fuel to get its offense going with captain Jude Aguilar and Dan Gutierrez, who came off the bench.
UST ended up with a whopping 49 errors in the contest.
Aguilar paced the Falcons with 15 points on 13 attacks, and Gutierrez added eight markers to go with four excellent receptions.
UST will go up against University of the Philippines on Saturday at 4:00 PM, seeking its fourth win of the season. On the other hand, Adamson University will take on Ateneo de Manila University on the following day, also at 4:00 PM.
Both matches will be played at the same Pasig venue.
