MANILA, Philippines (UPDATED) – The University of the East (UE) ended the first round with a win over the Adamson Lady Falcons in 5 sets, 25-22, 22-25, 14-25, 25-20, 15-13, on Sunday, March 4 at the Filoil Flying V Centre. 

Seth Rodriguez’ block brought UE to their first match point of the season and Chiara Permentilla’s attack cut the deficit to one, 14-13. Shaya Adorador’s offspeed attack surrenders the match to the Lady Warriors. 

The Lady Warriors have one win in their hands, 1-6, while the Lady Falcons fall to a 3-4 record in the UAAP Season 80 Women’s Volleyball tournament. 

Me-an Mendrez topscored for the Lady Warriors with 12 points all from spikes. Adorador made crucial impact in the 5th set as she scored 7 out of her 11 points to lift the Lady Warriors to their first victory. 

Kath Arado took care of the floor defense with 24 excellent digs and 32 receptions. 

Mylene Paat did most of the work for the Lady Falcons, scoring 23 points off 20 spikes and 3 blocks. 

The first set saw Adamson head coach Air Padda experiment with her rotation by replacing her usual starters with May Roque, Bernadette Flora and Chrislyn Uy. The Lady Falcons were trailing 1-5 early in the first set and they managed to rally back with 7 unanswered points to get to an advantage by the first technical timeout. 

The Lady Warriors managed to take the lead again with a Adorador attack, 16-15, and they pulled away with Mendrez giving UE a 1-0 lead to the match. 

Jema Galanza, Eli Soyud and Chiara Permentilla eventually came off the bench in the second set to power the Lady Falcons. Adamson capitalized on UE’s errors to get off to a 4-1 start and shift the momentum to their side. 

The Lady Falcons were two points away from taking their first set of the match as the Lady Warriors sparked a 5-1 run to cut the lead to two, 24-22. Joy Dacoron came up big as her attack evened the match at one-set apiece. 

Retaining their second set rotation, Adamson took control of the whole 3rd set with a 10-4 start. Mylene Paat scored 3 straight points that allowed Adamson to go up by 9, 15-6. Paat managed to bring the Lady Falcons to set point and a low attack by Mendrez gives Adamson the advantage in the match, 2-1.

The Lady Falcons collapsed with errors that allowed UE to take a 5-point lead, 14-9. Adamson continued to give away free points to the Lady Warriors, tallying a total of 16 errors which extended the match to a 5th set.

Shaya Adorador’s and Me-an Mendrez’ heroics pushed the Lady Warriors to a 10-4 advantage in the 5th set. Although the Lady Falcons were not able to recover from their errors, Mylene Paat came up big to cut the deficit to two, 13-11. – Rappler.com