DEFENDING champion Perpetual Help won its seventh game in eight outings at the expense of La Salle Greenhills, 25-14, 25-16, on Monday in the single-round eliminations to grab the no. 2 spot and twice-to-beat edge in the Final Four of the National Collegiate Athletic Association Season 99 Junior Volleyball Tournament at the Arellano Gym in Pasay City.
The No. 2 Junior Altas of coach Sandy Rieta will face No. 3 Malayan School (Mapua), while the No. 1 Arellano Braves take on the No. 4 Lyceum of the Philippines University Junior Pirates in the semifinals scheduled on Thursday.
Meanwhile, the No. 1 Arellano Girls Braves battle No. 4 Emilio Aguinaldo College Girl Brigadiers, while the No. 2 Junior Altas Girls go up against No. 3 Lyceum GenTri.
Arellano and Perpetual hold the twice-to-beat advantages.
Game 2 of the semifinals is scheduled on Friday.
Perpetual coaches Rieta and Jason Sapin want to steer their respective teams to the finals for the seventh consecutive year.
At the end of the single-round elimination in the Boys’ Division, Arellano and Perpetual finished with identical 7-1 records, while Malayan School had a 6-2 slate.
The rest of the elimination round ranking is as follows — LPU (5-3), Letran Squires (5-3), EAC (3-5), SBU (2-6), JRU (1-7) and La Salle Greenhills (0-8).
Arellano got the top spot because of the win-over-the-other rule as the former beat the latter in the elims, while LPU entered the semis at fourth spot due to the quotient ratio scores of 1.667 for the Junior Pirates and 1.429 for the Letran Squires.