Lady Warriors foil Oragons, wrest lead

MANILA, Philippines — Pocari Sweat-Air Force recovered from a first-set setback and drubbed lowly Iriga-Navy, 23-25, 25-18, 25-20, 25-22, to notch back-to-back wins in the quarterfinals of the Premier Volleyball League Reinforced Conference at the Filoil Flying V Center in San Juan last night.

The Lady Warriors floundered in the tightly contested first set but proved unrelenting in the next two before thwarting the Lady Oragons’ fightback in the fourth to clinch the victory, their second straight in the single round phase of the season-opening conference of the league organized by Sports Vision.

“I’m very thankful that we are undefeated in our first two games. Hopefully, we can sustain this against a strong team in BanKo-Perlas which we will be facing next,” said Pocari coach Jasper Jimenez.

The Lady Oragons fell to 0-2.

Madeline Palmer topscored with 19 points, Arielle Love came away with 18 hits all on attacks, Myla Pablo chalked up 14 markers while Angel Antipuesto and Jeanette Panaga combined for 17 for the defending champions.

Macy Ubben and Lauren Whyte led the way anew with their 27 and 18 points, respectively, but it was not enough to end Iriga-Navy’s slump.

Earlier, Petro Gazz quickly disposed of Tacloban, 25-15, 25-17, 25-21, to bounce back in the semifinal hunt with a 1-1 card.

Ukrainians Olena Lymareva-Flink and Anastasiia Trach fired 22 and 11 points, respectively, for the Angels who rebounded from their  25-18, 20-25, 24-26, 21-25 loss to the Lady Warriors Saturday night.