CAPITAL1 capped off a huge first round for the franchise by taking down ZUS Coffee, 18-25, 25-20, 25-19, 25-18, to finish off its first phase of the 2024 PVL Reinforced Conference in style last Tuesday at the Philsports Arena.
Iris Tolenada set up a remarkable Capital1 stand with 21 excellent sets and five attack points.
Monumental upsets and breakthrough wins, including its first back-to-back PVL wins over Choco Mucho and now ZUS Coffee, defined a historic Round 1 run for the 3-2 Solar Spikers.
The win also sent Capital1 to Pool D entering the second round alongside Cignal and Akari, where they await the bottom three from Pool A, effectively relegating Choco Mucho, Petro Gazz and ZUS Coffee to a tougher Pool C against the opposite group’s top three sides.
“We always talk about just being resilient and competing on the court. It’s up to us because we’re the underdogs, we played another underdog team so underdog battle is pretty awesome to watch so it’s really everyone committing to keeping the ball off on our side and getting more kills,” Tolenada said.
“We started so hard but then we did it, you know? When we started this conference, we make points more because of some mistakes of other team and not the clear point. Today, my teammates did clear points,” added Marina Tushova, who had a fitting 32-point follow-up to her historic 45-piece last week.
Apart from Capital1’s leading local scorer Des Clemente with 12 markers, their two draft picks in Jenya Torres (seven points and 12 digs) and Leila Cruz (five points) came to Tushova’s aid on offense.
Victory, however, remained elusive for the Thunderbelles even with Tamaru Asaka’s 22 attacks and a promising double-double from Dolly Verzosa with 12 points and 26 receptions.
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