Bacoor City — Defending champion Petron seeks to keep its momentum going when it takes on Generika-Ayala at the start of the second round of the Philippine Superliga All-Filipino Conference Tuesday at the Bacoor Strike Gym here.
The Blaze Spikers, who hold the solo second place with a 6-1 win-loss record, gun for their fifth straight victory against the Lifesavers (5-2) in the 7 p.m. main game of this explosive double-header.
Meanwhile, Jaja Santiago and Foton (4-3) gun for their fourth consecutive win against lowly Sta. Lucia (1-6) in the first game at 4:15 p.m.
After crushing the Lady Realtors in their previous game at the Alonte Sports Arena in Binan City over the weekend, Petron mentor Shaq Delos Santos was now convinced that they had already arrested their slow start and are now ready to roar for their third straight All-Filipino crown.
Still, the veteran core of Frances Molina, Aiza Maizo-Pontillas, Bernadeth Pons, Mika Reyes and Rhea Dimaculangan has to jack up their performance to dominate the Lifesavers, who are also coming off a fine performance in the first round.
In their previous encounter, in fact, the Lifesavers vented their ire on PLDT Home Fibr, 27-25, 16-25, 25-18, 25-13, to bounce back from a three-set loss to Petron last week.
Lifesavers coach Sherwin Meneses encourages his wards led by Angeli Araneta, Fiola Ceballos and Patty Orendain to be more confident against the Blaze Spikers, who have been dominating the league the past couple of weeks.
“They shouldn’t play with low morale because this is the first time that we finished third in the first round,” Meneses said. “Before we started slow but now is a good time to be confident.”
“We have to triple our effort against title contenders like Petron and F2 Logistics because we couldn’t even get a set against them. We’ll try again against Petron.”
