Lady Eagles bring down Lady Falcons in 5 sets

Ateneo turned to its solid blocking at crunch time as it survived resilient Adamson, 25-18, 14-25, 25-18, 15-25, 1510, yesterday in UAAP women’s volleyball at The Arena in San Juan City.

Coming off a shaky fourth set where they stumbled into 13 errors, the Lady Eagles got their acts together in the deciding frame and dictated the tempo early to pick up their third straight victory in five outings.

Back-to-back blocks by at Tolentino and Maddie Madayag sealed the win for Ateneo, which also turned to Jules Samonte and Jho Maraguinot to do damage late in the match.

Leading 9-8, Samonte and Maraguinot shattered the Lady Falcons’ net defense with their off-the-block spikes to send the Lady Eagles on their way, 12-10.

Madayag admitted they lacked focus, particularly in their defense.

“We weren’t really blocking, we were struggling and distracted, pero we gave everything we’ve got, yung mga paghihirap namin sa training,” said Madayag, who paced Ateneo with 14 points along with four blocks and three aces.

Maraguinot also led Ateneo with 15 points, including 13 hits, even as Samonte and Tolentino chipped in 14 and 10 points, respectively.

Adamson absorbed its second straight loss to drop to 2-3 despite Christine Soyud and Jema Galanza scoring 19 and 12 points.

In men’s action, reigning Most Valuable Player Marck Espejo exploded with 31 points to steer Ateneo past Adamson, 25-14, 25-27, 25-23, 28-26.

Espejo built his performance on 26 kills, three blocks and two aces as the Eagles improved to 4-1 at solo second. Adamson dropped to 1-4.

La Salle, for its part, turned to Raymark Woo and Arjay Onia’s combined 43 points as it edged University of the East, 25-14, 25-20, 19-25, 25-21, for 3-1. UE plummeted to 0-5.