MANILA, Philippines — The De La Salle Lady Spikers swept their way to the UAAP Season 88 women's volleyball Finals, denying the National University Lady Bulldogs in a pulsating 5-set battle, 27-25, 15-25, 23-25, 25-23, 15-13, at the Mall of Asia Arena Sunday.
Celebration ensued for the green and white after making their 22nd Finals appearance.
Only, the joy of the present reignites the nightmare of the past especially for head coach Ramil De Jesus and assistant Noel Orcullo.
The last time the Lady Spikers swept their way to the Finals in Season 76 back in 2014, they lost to the Ateneo Blue Eagles even with a thrice-to-beat advantage, yielding their 4-peat bid in four games.
Although players like Aby Marano and Mika Reyes for La Salle and Alyssa Valdez and Jia Morado for Ateneo are no longer playing in the UAAP today, De Jesus and Orcullo remain with La Salle.
They don't want a repeat of that Season 76 collapse -- one in which they even held a 30-game win streak dating back to Season 75 -- to happen again.
"Maybe the nightmare we had in Season 76 is something we really don’t want to happen again. Maybe with what’s happening now, where we’re waiting for the championship (finals), we’ll really work even harder for it," said Orcullo.
"Our focus won’t waver—whatever we started, whatever our goal is, we’ll stick to that. None of us will give up; we’ll stay aligned with the coach’s goal and the players’ goal. How we built this, how we started it, that’s also how we’ll finish it."
De Jesus and Orcullo would lead La Salle to a three-peat after that Season 76 meltdown and one more in Season 85 back in 2022 for their 12th title.
Unlike in Season 76, this Season 88 Lady Spikers team no longer has a thrice-to-beat advantage since that incentive was abolished in Season 79 (2016-17).
That's another motivation to work harder.
“That’s also what we told them — if we’re able to sweep this, we still need to work three times harder," said Orcullo.
"We can’t relax just because we’ve already swept (the eliminations); we can’t start taking it easy. Whatever training we’ve been doing, maybe we need to triple the effort we put in.”
La Salle will face the eventual winner in the stepladder semifinals among the second to fourth seed teams.
NU is currently second with a 9-4 slate, while Adamson is third with a 9-5 record and University of Santo Tomas is fourth with an 8-5 card.
Fifth seed Far Eastern University (7-6) is still in the hunt for the last semis berth.
