Blaze Spikers beat Foton Tornadoes to force winner-take-all PSL Finals
The defending titleholder Petron Blaze Spikers showed championship poise and resolve as they fought off a fiery charge by the Foton Tornadoes to win Game 2, 25-13, 25-21, 23-25, 26-24, in the Philippine Super Liga Grand Prix best-of-three finals yesterday at the Arena in San Juan.
Import Rupia Inck had 25 points but it was the timely contributions of local aces Aby Marano and Dindin Santiago-Manabat that proved to be the difference as they each had 16 points to help Petron author the exciting victory yesterday to equalize the series and book a kill-or-be killed duel on Saturday.
Inck started out slow, but caught fire in the crucial moments of the fourth set while middle hitters Aby Marano and Dindin Manabat dominated the Tornadoes’ fearsome twosome of Jaja Santiago and Katie Messing all game long.
Petron was in control in the first two sets but in the third, the Blaze Spikers suffered some minor hiccups as Foton’s gem of an import in American Lindsay Stalzer caught fire while Santiago and Messing fortified their defensive fortress at the net. With the game tied at 22, Erica Adachi committed a service error while Marano’s attack went long, giving Stalzer a chance to seal the match point for Foton with a booming smash from the right wing.
In the fourth, however, Foton zoomed to a 22-19 lead before Inck unleashed three hits to grab the driver’s seat.
Although Messing scored on a quick attack to give the Tornadoes a 24-23 edge and threatened to stretch the game to a fifth set, Inck tied the game up before Manabat blocked Inck to nab match point. Messing then spiked the ball out of bounds to give Petron the win.
Stalzer registered 19 kills and two aces for a total of 23 points while Messing and Santiago contributed 11 points apiece for Foton, which upset the odds as it coasted from being the fourth-seed in the semifinals all the way to the brink of winning the title.