La Salle's De Jesus stresses series vs NU not over

MANILA, Philippines — Anything can happen.

La Salle head coach Ramil de Jesus brought up an old sport adage -- the ”ball is round” -- despite the Lady Spikers dropping the first game of their UAAP Season 87 women’s volleyball finals series against the National University Lady Bulldogs.

La Salle absorbed a four-set defeat at the hands of the Lady Bulldogs, 25-17, 25-21, 13-25, 25-17, in Game 1 Sunday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City.

NU is thus one win away from repeating as the women’s volleyball champions.

After the game, de Jesus said that a lot of things could still change even if they are standing in a 0-1 hole in the race-to-two series.

“Bilog ang bola. Maaring pwede pang magbago, 'di ba? So yun na lang, kasi kanina maayos naman yung receive namin so talagang may mga times na nakakadepensa rin,” he said in a chance interview.

“Kung nagawa ng third set, bakit imposibleng maipanalo di ba, kung ganun kalayo yung score. Hopefully maging maayos pa,” he added.

After dropping the first two sets, the Lady Spikers, thanks to a huge performance from Angel Canino, took the third set, 25-13.

De Jesus, though, insisted that the team’s setting game was the big difference for their team.

The Lady Spikers managed just 19 excellent sets as a team, with 11 coming from Jules Tolentino and eight coming from rookie Mikole Reyes.

This is less than NU’s Lams Lamina, who tallied 22 excellent sets. 

The squad punched in a total of 47 points of attacks compared to the Lady Bulldogs’ 62.

“Nakitang-nakita naman na ang difference ay setting. Kahit yung last interview ko, yun ang sinabi ko. Hopefully, sa next game, maayos na yung setting,” he said.

“Ang naging problema ko lang siguro kanina is yung talagang ma-maximize yung mga spikers namin. Athough pag umabot naman yung set, nakakapatay naman.”

La Salle last won the championship in UAAP Season 85 also against NU.

Game 2 of the series will be on Wednesday, 5 p.m., at the Mall of Asia Arena.