Benilde pushes women’s volleyball win streak to 30 games over 4 years

Games Tomorrow
(Filoil EcoOil Arena)
7:30 a.m. — Mapua vs SSC-R (men’s)
10 a.m. — Mapua vs SSC-R (women’s)
2 p.m. — LPU vs San Beda (women’s)
5 p.m. — LPU vs San Beda (men’s)

FOR 29 straight NCAA games spanning four years, College of St. Benilde (CSB) was nothing short of immaculate.

Make it 30 in a row.

Brandishing the same deadly and unforgiving roster that netted them two straight title sweeps, the Lady Blazers walloped the Emilio Aguinaldo College (EAC) Lady Generals, 25-15, 25-14, 25-23 Wednesday that kept them on track for a three-peat sweep in NCAA Season 99 women’s volleyball action at the Filoil EcoOil Arena.

It also extended CSB’s run of excellence to 30 consecutive wins — seven four years ago when the season was halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic and a pair of 11-game championship sweeps the last two seasons.

Mycah Go, the team’s former skipper and MVP who was back after missing more than a year due to multiple knee injuries, however, said the team is not focused on the streak and taking it one game at a time. “Hindi namin iniisip na wala kami talo o champion kami, lagi namin sinasabi back to zero kami (We never think about being undefeated or winning the championship; we always consider every game to be a reset back to zero),” the 23-year-old Ms. Go said, after playing minimal minutes in a bid to fully recover.

The Lady Blazers faltered in the third set when they trailed the Lady Generals by two, 21-19, but kept their wits about them with recalibrated attacking and defensive schemes to seize six of the last eight points.

“Lagi namin sinasabi kalaban namin sarili. Iyun nangyari, nag relax at feeling namin okay na maski hindi pa tapos ang game (We can be our own worst enemies. What happened was, we relaxed and felt we had done enough, even though the match was not over),” Ms. Go said.

In men’s action earlier, EAC edged CSB, 22-25, 25-23, 25-22, 22-25, 15-12, to launch its bid to duplicate, if not improve on its Final Four finish last year.

Jan Ruther Abor came off the bench and fired 26 points with 25 kills, while Marvin Williams Romero and captain Kenneth Batiancila contributed 16 and 11 hits, respectively. — Joey Villar