SHAINA Nitura made history once more in only her seventh UAAP women’s volleyball match for Adamson by resetting the league’s single-game scoring record with 38 points built on 35 attacks and three aces.
Exactly one month ago, her 33-piece against Ateneo was the most by any rookie in a seniors debut match.
READ: UP overcomes Nitura's 38 points to finally come back to life
The only downside to her most recent herculean feat is how the 20-year-old ace spiker’s heroic performance was dampened by a sorry five-set loss to University of the Philippines.
The Lady Falcons went on to close out a dismal first round with just two wins and will enter Round 2 on a four-game skid, having lost five of its last six.
Nitura’s eventual response to her bittersweet career game? Silence.
Adamson’s rookie-captain turned down reporters after the match — a practice that has become routinary for Nitura during the Lady Falcons’ recent defeats.
Although this time, she was reportedly instructed by second-year Adamson head coach JP Yude not to entertain any post-game interviews.
A curse or an omen?
Looking back at previous seasons, the UAAP’s previous scoring record-holders had another thing in common with Nitura: losing the match they made history in.
Ateneo great Alyssa Valdez first hit the now-eclipsed 35-point benchmark in Season 75 (2013) where she nailed 31 attacks, three blocks and an ace in a failed reverse-sweep bid against Adamson.
The final score? 25-21, 25-22, 19-25, 16-25, 15-10 in favor of the Lady Falcons.
Six years later come Season 81, another UAAP MVP in Sisi Rondina also fired 35 points on 30 attacks, three blocks and two aces for University of Santo Tomas against Ateneo.
Not only did UST held the wrong end of the stick in a five-set thriller but Rondina’s back-to-back errors from 10-13 down in the tiebreak handed a 25-19, 25-22, 25-27, 22-25, 11-15 victory to the Blue Eagles.
The exact same curse also unraveled in the pro scene when Capital1 import Marina Tushova’s historic 50-point game in the 2024 PVL Reinforced Conference quarterfinals went for naught in a five-set loss to Cignal.
But the thing is, both Valdez and Rondina were still able to reach the finals in the seasons when they set or matched the league’s single-game scoring record.
Although both also settled for silver, Nitura wouldn’t mind such an omen as Adamson remains the only school without a UAAP women’s volleyball crown.
If records are meant to be broken, then Nitura & Co. will carry the hope that championship droughts can and will soon end, too.
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