Lady Jaguars breeze through Cesafi beach volley semis

THE UNIVERSITY of San Jose-Recoletos (USJ-R) Jaguars women’s and girls beach volleyball teams advanced to the semifinals of the 18th Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation, Inc. (Cesafi) beach volleyball tournament after winning their games yesterday at the sand court located at the back of Fort San Pedro.

USJ-R’s veteran volleybelle Linlyn Torado together with her rookie teammate Almarie Pacinio defeated first timers Cebu Doctors’ University (CDU) Falcons’ Aira Yzabel Velasco and Mariko Therese Suzuki in straight sets, 24-22, 21-10, to advance to the semifinals in the women’s division as the top ranked team.

For Torado, being a veteran in the sport is one of her biggest challenges for this season. “The players just keep getting better and better through the years,” the 4-year USJ-R bet told Cebu Daily News.

“My partner as well is a rookie so I have to make a few adjustments for myself so I can cope up to the evolving volleyball contestants,” she added.

Torado, in the previous years, was a partner of Paula Maninang who moved up to the professional level and is now playing for the Premier Volleyball League (PVL) 2018 champions Creamline Cool Smashers.

Torado shared that going into the semis is not an easy task to do. “I am overwhelmed that we got the first rank but there is still a long way to go so we will not ease up.”

With University of San Carlos (USC) Lady Warriors winning against University of Cebu (UC) Webmasters, 21-8, 21-16, the top three teams—USJ-R, USC and University of Southern Philippines Foundation (USPF) Panthers, who all tallied 5-1 (win-loss) records, had to go through the quotient system to determine the semis
ranking.

The Jaguars ranked first with 1.530 points. The Panthers (1.211) and Lady Warriors (1.158) succeeded on second and third places, respectively. The Falcons is at fourth with its 3-3 record.

In the girls division, USJ-R also bagged a semifinals ticket despite losing to Southwestern University (SWU)-Phinma, 13-21, 17-21.

USPF advances as the top seed after dominating UC, 21-9, 21-10, to keep its record clean at 4-0. SWU-Phinma (3-1) is at second, USJ-R (2-2) at third and UC (1-3) completes the semifinalists.

The cross-over semifinals will start on Friday, December 21 with ranked 1 teams going up against ranked 4 and ranked 2 teams facing the third rank teams.