Kingwhale eliminates Army in big PVL debut
KINGWHALE-TAIPEI, parading a blend of young and veteran players, beat Army Black Mamba, 26-24, 25-18, 26-24, to make its presence felt in the Premier Volleyball League (PVL) at the SM Mall of Asia Arena on Monday.
The Taiwanese team anchored its victory on Brazilian import Bea Flavio de Carvalho and gutsy plays in a couple of sets that went down-tothe-wire—saving a set point each in the first and third frames with a fine display of grace and composure while dominating the second to complete the victory in one hour and 30 minutes.
The victory put the lone foreign guest squad on track to the finals while bundling out the Lady Troopers from the race.
The lefty Carvalho provided a menacing presence whenever she was on flight, banging in vicious kills that often hit their targets to the delight of the crowd but to the chagrin of the Lady Troopers, who couldn’t neutralize most of those blasts, one of which even hit Ivy Perez in the chest in the third set.
“This is the first time we mixed our young and veteran players in a tournament,” said Kingwhale coach Teng Yen-min, who drew doubledigit outputs from three starters with Carvalhoo finishing with 15, including 13 attack points.
“We’re happy the PVL invited us. In our first game against Army, we felt good. This was also the first time that we played in a big gym because there’s nothing like this in Taiwan,” Teng said. “We are just excited to play more games in this tournament.”
The visitors finished with 47
attack points, 17 more than the Lady Troopers, who actually produced more blocks, 7-5, and aces, 2-1, and scored 27 points off Kingwhale miscues while yielding 24 points of their own.
Army fought back from big deficits in the first and third sets but just couldn’t unleash the strong finishing kick to snatch a win.
The Lady Troopers moved to match point at 24-23 in the first set but yielded the next three points on a Carvalho kill, a block off Jovelyn Gonzaga and another hit from Chen Li-jun.
A Gonzaga blast ended a long rally that featured furious exchanges of hits and saves with libero Angela Nunag diving to keep the ball in play that led to the Cebuana ace’s hit that made it 24-23 for Army in the third.
But like in the previous frame, the Lady Troopers failed to step up as Chang Chih-hsuan took over with a couple of kills that sandwiched Wang Yu-wen’s key block off Jem Gutierrez.