Cignal rallies to foil Amy’s

Games Saturday (FilOil Flying V Center)

2:30 p.m. – Amy’s vs Generika

4:30 p.m. – Cignal vs Standard Insurance-Navy

6:30 p.m. – Petron vs Foton

LIPA, Philippines – Cignal overcame a poor start with a strong finish to carve out a 14-25, 25-27, 25-13, 25-14 victory over Amy’s in the second round of the Philippine Superliga All-Filipino Conference women’s volleyball tournament at the La Salle Lipa Sentrum here yesterday.

Cherry Vivas fired 10 attack points while Janine Navarro, Carmela Tunay and Jeanette Panaga chipped in nine points apiece for the HD Spikers, who bounced back after a sorry loss to Generika in their first game of the second round.

The HD Spikers need to win its last game against Standard Insurance-Navy tomorrow to determine the placing in the classification phase of the tournament sponsored by KLab Cyscorpions, Mueller, Mikasa and Asics with TV5 as official broadcaster.

“Our best finish will be fifth,” said Cignal coach Sammy Acaylar, who drew a 23-set effort from Djanel Cheng. “But it’s okay. We’re still motivated to claim that fifth spot. I just tell her to do their best because something good will happen if we give our hundred percent every game.”

The Spikers displayed their might in the early stretch as Cindy Imbo buckled down to work, scoring back-to-back aces to give Amy’s an early 8-5 lead in the first technical timeout.

That lead swelled to nine, 21-12, with Cignal failing to come up with an answer to the hot smashes of Imbo and Jowie Verzosa.

“I told the team to respect our opponent,” Acayar said, referring to Amy’s, which has yet to win since joining the league as New San Jose Builders in the PSL Invitational Conference.

“Fortunately, they got their acts together in the second and third sets. Then, their confidence grew in the fourth set and started to enjoy the game.”

Imbo tallied nine hits and three aces to finish with 12 points while Verzosa had nine markers for Amy’s, composed of the members of NCAA powerhouse University of Perpetual Help.