THE De La Salle Lady Spikers aim to secure a twice-to-beat Final Four advantage as they face the Far Eastern University (FUE) Lady Tamaraws in the UAAP Season 88 women’s volleyball second round at the Mall of Asia Arena on Wednesday.
The league-leading and still undefeated La Salle takes on FEU at 3 p.m., with their match serving as the main event of the game day.
Ateneo de Manila and University of the Philippines (UP) clash in a men’s match to open the curtains at 9 a.m. followed by another men’s game between FEU and La Salle at 11 a.m.
Ateneo and UP clash in the women’s division this time at 1 p.m. before the La Salle-FEU women’s encounter.
Looking to repeat over the Lady Tamaraws — whom they defeated in their season-opener on Feb. 14 — 25-19, 25-14, 27-25, a win by the Lady Spikers will secure them at least a top two finish that merits the twice-to-beat semis advantage.
They will also stretch their unbeaten run to 11 games, only three away from sweeping the elimination round, which comes with an outright Finals berth.
The Ramil De Jesus-mentored team secured a Final Four entry for the 16th straight season or since Season 71 after blanking UP, 25-15, 25-18, 25-20, on March 29.
Angel Canino said there’s no let up for the Lady Spikers.
“We won’t just stop there because we still have many games left, and we need to focus on whoever our next opponent is,” said the Season 85 Most Valuable Player.
While La Salle has been vocal about its championship aspirations from the start, Canino said the Lady Spikers aren’t losing focus on the task at hand which is the 6-4 and fourth-running Lady Tamaraws in this case.
“That’s what’s good about our team. We don’t focus on whatever our ‘big goal’ is. We focus on one game at a time. We look at what we can do and what we can change as a team and as individuals. And that’s the great thing, because we’re actually able to do it... and we’ve been applying it to our games.”
Meanwhile, the fourth-running FEU last saw action on March 29 when it fell to neighbor University of Santo Tomas, 17-25, 17-25, 25-18, 17-25.
The Tina Salak-mentored team looks to recover and boost its Final Four bid in the process.