POCARI Sweat shoots for its second straight title is it guns for a sweep against the Bureau of Customs (BOC) in Game Two of their best-of-three finals series of the Shakey’s V-League Season 13 Reinforced Conference on Monday at the PhilSports Arena in Pasig City.
The Lady Warriors, who won the Open Conference championship, hope to make a repeat of their 25-22, 25-18, 25-18 in Game One last Saturday with another victory in their 6 p.m. encounter.
In the battle for bronze, BaliPure eyes the third-place finish with a win in Game Two against University of Santo Tomas.
Lady Warriors Head Coach Rommel Abella said their Game One win gave them the confidence to finish off the Transformers.
“It’s gonna be a big boost sa confidence ng team namin and for sure ‘yung mga player natin masayang masaya. Masaya din naman lahat kami sa effort na binigay nila, but sabi ko nga sa kanila kanina sa timeout there’s still room for improvement,” Abella said.
“May mga lapses pa rin kami and it’s just that bumabawi kami kaagad hindi kami nagpapalamang ng mga two points, three points ganyan, so ang maganda nakakabawi kami agad,” he added.
Pocari Sweat skipper Michele Gumabao this is not the time to let their guards down against the dangerous Customs.
“Ngayon championship na kailangan lahat mag-step up, kailangan talaga lahat bumawi and lahat talaga mag-contribute,” said Gumabao, who along with import Breanna Mackie finished with 13 points apiece in the finals opener.
“Siyempre pag may championship experience ka kasi hindi ka naman automatically sanay sa championship, siyempre nariyan pa rin ang pressure. Alam naman natin lahat kalaban namin ‘yung crowd, talagang ‘yung crowd siguro three-fourths Customs talaga, so kami sa side namin kailangan lang talaga kung ano ang ine-ensayo namin mapakita namin sa game,” she added.
Abella warned his wards not to feel over confident as Customs is very capable of tying the series with Alyssa Valdez on the Transformers’ side.
“It’s on the mindset of the players kailangan instill namin na we still have to play, we just can’t go in the arena and hope that Customs will just give us points,” Abella closed. “We have to play hard, we have to outwork ‘yung effort na binibigay ng Customs we have to double it.”
Customs Coach Sherwin Meneses said their 26 turnovers in Game One cost them the match.
“Natalo ‘yung team namin sa amin,” Meneses said. “Nag-prepare naman kami kaso hindi naging maganda ‘yung game ngayon kasi nga sa service receive din pero overall talaga parang 50 percent lang ang lumabas sa training namin matatalo talaga kami.”