Tiger Spikers rout DLSU in four, notches first win since 2020
By Ernest Martin Tuazon
The UST Tiger Spikers returned to the UAAP competition with a four-set romp of the DLSU Green Spikers in Season 85 of men’s volleyball tournament, 25–22, 23–25, 25–22, 25–19, Sunday evening, at the Mall of Asia Arena.
Despite giving 10 errors in the fourth and final set, Jay De La Noche nailed back-to-back service aces, while Rey De Vega punched the final kill, 25–19, to give UST its first win since 2020.
The third set consisted of 11 deadlocks between UST and La Salle, but freshman Josh Ybanez scored three of the last six Tiger Spiker points to steal the set away from Taft, 25–22.
With UST leading by two, 23–21, in the second set, La Salle sparked a 4–0 run to knot the match at 1-all, lifted by back-to-back errors from its main scorers in De Vega and Ybanez.
Ybanez, the only true rookie in UST’s 14-man lineup, scored four straight points and gave the Tiger Spikers its much needed momentum to win the opening set, 25–22.
Three Tiger Spikers scored in double figures, led by Ybanez’s debut performance of 24 markers, along with a combined contribution of 34 points from De Vega and De La Noche.
The University will next face the Far Eastern University on Wednesday, March 1, at the PhilSports Arena in Pasig.
