MANILA, Philippines -- University of Santo Tomas got a free ride to the semifinals after Arellano U blew a two sets lead and fell to St. Benilde, 23-25, 25-27, 25-23, 25-23, 15-10, Sunday in the Shakey's V-League Season 12-Collegiate Conference at The Arena in San Juan City.
Already out of it all, Jannine Navarro played relax and went on attack mode and unleashed a match-best 31 including 26 on kills as the Lady Blazers went out with a bang by notching their first win against six defeats.
It was a painful defeat for the Lady Chiefs, the reigning NCAA champions, as they couldn't cashed in on their chances when they went two sets up and just crumbled under tremendous pressure.
Arellano would have caught up with UST at No. 4 with 4-3 (win-loss) records and forge a sudden death for the last semis berth on Wednesday.
Instead, the Lady Chiefs ended up getting eliminated with a 3-4 slate while handing on a silver platter the last spot in the all-UAAP semis to the Tigresses.
There, UST will clash with Ateneo, the UAAP titlist which swept its way to the semis as the top seed, at 12:45 p.m. on Saturday at the same venue while No. 2 National U and No. 3 Far Eastern U collide in the other semis pairing at 3 p.m.
Menchie Tubiera paced her team with 24 hits, most of which came in the first two sets when Arellano scraped past St. Benilde to seize a 2-0 lead.
It turned out the Lady Chiefs' last hurrah as Navarro went on a spiking show.
It didn't help that Arellano committed a disastrous 44 errors against St. Benilde's 34.