Lady Maroons seek a page of PVL history

University of the Philippines tries to rewrite history as it shoots for a breakthrough crown against Far Eastern University in the Premier Volleyball League Collegiate Conference Season 2 at the Filoil Flying V Center in San Juan today.

Playing in their first finals appearance, the Lady Maroons showed steely nerves as they turned back last year’s runnerup Lady Tamaraws, 14-25, 22-25, 26-24, 25-18, 15-5, in the opener of their best-of-three series Sunday. They vowed to finish off the Lady Tams for their first title in the league and their first major crown since ruling the UAAP in 1982.

Gametime is at 6 p.m. following University of Santo Tomas-Adamson’s battle for third place.

“I don’t think the girls are tensed in any way (in Game One). The way we started was slow but as time went by, we realized how strong we were and we will take it from there,” said UP coach Godfrey Okumu who drew double figures from Isa Molde (16 points), Roselyn Rosier (15), Marian Buitre (14) and Aie Gannaban (11) in the Game One victory.

Molde and Rosier also turned in 14 digs each.

“We’ll try to play and finish it (today) but FEU is a strong team. I don’t know what kind of thing they’ll bring to us (today). We’ll be ready. We’ll be waiting,” said Okumu.

But fueled by finals heartbreaks in the tourney as well as in the UAAP, FEU promises to be twice as deadly as it guns to send the series into a rubber match.

“Bitin na bitin na kami, sobra. We don’t want to become runner-up again this time. We’ll do everything we can to get the championship,” said Lady Tamaraws skipper and playmaker Kyle Negrito.

“Coach George (Pascua) told us that we should not feel down because that was just Game One. We were able to come back against UST (in the best-of-three semis) so we can do it again against UP,” said Negrito.