Sunday, April 27, 2008 SWU takes UV's crown By Januar E. Yap Of Sun.Star Cebu
BORACAY—With dazzling show of wit and tireless action, Cebu teams drew blood on the white sands for the final rounds of the Nestea beach volleyball nationals yesterday, with the Southwestern University (SWU) taking the title former champion University of the Visayas (UV) in three sets, 22-25, 23-25, 11-15.
Before stealing the championship title from UV, SWU’s team-up of Janelle Tabio and Florian Gutierrez battled two games against Adamson University (ADU) and Far Eastern University (FEU) to come full circle for the final, vengeful round against their toughest competitor, UV.
Tabio and Gutierrez lost to UV’s Jusabelle Brillo and Janez Armie Igot the other day in a sticky three-setter.
The two teams from Cebu stayed determined in racing for the championship title and allowed no one else to get in the way of their bid.
While SWU battled ADU and FEU with three sets in each round to face UV for the finals, UV likewise pushed University of Mindanao-Tagum (UMT) to their knees in a steamy three-set match that left UMT grappling merely for a third place bid.
The final match, with top-seeded UV and SWU vying for Nestea’s championship title that comes with P100,000 cash prize for the winning team, was the match that brought fiery tension in the otherwise-carefree Boracay.
UV stole the first set with a three-point lead over SWU, with Brillo and Igot aggressively playing SWU down. SWU’s Tabio committed several errors that cost them crucial points in the first set. Brillo and Igot showed fire and disallowed long rallies with sneaky tipping moves that brought the ball right where SWU’s Tabio and Gutierrez weren’t looking.
But Igot and Brillo, both nerve-wracked to defend their championship, had a taste of their own medicine when Tabio went for equally smarter moves that brought SWU on a two-point lead for the second set, pushing the championship match to a third, very stiff deciding set.
Gutierrez, on her final year of playing for SWU, wanted to grab the championship before she bows out of the Nestea Beach circuit, and this she did with strong spikes that snuck up Brillo and Igot from behind.
The SWU team finally stole the women’s division championship from UV with a four-point lead in the third set.
Meanwhile, in the men’s division, Cebu’s sole contender under this wing was flying on white sand, with University of Southern Philippines Foundation’s (USPF) tough team-up of James Ryan Rivera and Jonrey Sasing.
Jonrey “Air” Sasing smacked the ball furiously on the other court, tiring down to defeat Raquelito Tayabas and Rowell Fabian from the University of Mindanao-Tagum (UMT).
However, this winning streak from Sasing’s “flying” stunts only came close to grabbing the championship. Foundation University’s (FU) grounded Sasing in the final to grab the title and push the blazing team of USPF to second place.
