Bacoor City—Tarnishing Petron’s flawless slate will be Foton’s ultimate objective when they clash anew in the Philippine Superliga All-Filipino Conference Tuesday at the Bacoor Strike Gym here.
Action kicks off at 7 p.m., with the Tornadoes itching to become the first team to deal the Blaze Spikers their first loss in this prestigious women’s club tourney bankrolled by Isuzu, Sogo, Senoh, Asics, Mikasa, Mueller, UCPB Gen and Bizooku with Genius Sports as technical provider.
Meanwhile, Sta. Lucia looks to barge into the win column when it tackles struggling Smart at 2 p.m., while Cignal and Generika-Ayala are out to shatter their deadlock in the 4:15 p.m. second match of this explosive triple header that ESPN5, Hyper HD and Aksyon TV as broadcast partners.
After racing to an impressive 8-0 start, Petron is heavily tipped to sweep this tourney, similar to what it did three years ago when the core of Rachel Anne Daquis, Aby Marano and Dindin Manabat steered the club to 13 consecutive wins en route to its first All-Filipino crown.
But the road to a perfect conference will be very difficult.
Foton, for one, is also having an amazing performance despite the absence of sisters Jaja Santiago and Manabat and the season-ending injury suffered by spikers Arianne Layug and Shaya Adorador.
Layug, the former De La Salle University stalwart, crashed with an anterior cruciate ligament tear while the former University of the East main gunner in Adorador suffered a severe sinusitis infection.
Adding motivation to the Tornadoes is their 14-25, 27-25, 14-25, 12-25 setback to the Blaze Spikers last Thursday that sent them to third spot with a 5-2 win-loss slate entering the second round.
But head coach Aaron Velez insisted that they would march to warzone with no pressure.
“We know how strong Petron is. We will try to our best to beat them, but we will go there and have some fun. No pressure and no expectations whatsoever,” said Velez, adding that the troika of Mika Reyes, Aiza Maizo-Pontillas and Frances Molina will be tough to handle at the attack zone.
“We know that we lost the Santiago sisters and now Arianne and Shaya. We’re depleted. So I told the team to just enjoy the game and play with no pressure.”
Petron coach Shaq Delos Santos admitted that booking eight straight wins puts pressure on their shoulders.
They, however, will just play the game as if they haven’t won a single game.
“It’s tough. Everybody is looking to beat us,” said Delos Santos, who was part of the coaching staff the last time the squad notched a perfect conference.
“So I told the team to don’t look at the standings. Just do their best and play their game like an ordinary match.””‹