UV, CPU retain crowns in Nestea beach volley

Boracay—The University of the Visayas (UV) tandem of Jade Becaldo and Mike “The Wall” Abria redeemed themselves from a slight bump last Friday as they successfully defended their men’s title in the 16th Nestea Beach Volley 2013 National Championship yesterday at the White Sand Beach here.

Just like last year, UV defeated the University of San Jose Recoletos (USJ-R) pair of Jade Illut and Jason Uy, 28-26, 21-12, to become the back-to-back champions and bring home the P100,000 cash prize.

USJ-R settled for the second place and the University of Southern Philippines (USPF), manned by Edmar Bonono and Edward Ybanez, salvaged third place with a 21-14, 21-13 routing of Arellano University (AU).

With this, the Cebuano teams secured the top 3 positions in this year’s men’s championship.

UV took the longer route this time around since it bowed to USJ-R in their first meeting last Friday. It kept its title hopes alive by defeating University of Mindanao Tagum (UMT), 21-19, 16-21, 15-6, to advance to the semifinal round, where it played against USPF.

UV barged into the final round by surviving the crowd-favorite USPF, 17-21, 21-13, 15-7, setting up a rematch against USJ-R.

“I challenged them because after losing to USJ-R, we had to go up against UMT, which is a very strong team,” said UV head coach Raffy Briones, who won his third Nestea national title counting the ladies crown UV won in 2007 courtesy of Jusabelle Brillo and Janez Ygot. “we also had to go up  against USPF, which is a crowd favorite. I made them aware of what mistakes they were committing.”

Comparing their run to the title this year to last year, Briones said that there wasn’t much difference because they also lost to Arellano University in the first round last year.

Briones admitted Abria was not playing his usual game last Friday. But he said was confident with his players because of their championship experience.

“Ako lang gibawi tanan nako sayop gahapon (Friday) then naningkamot ko, fighting spirit lang jud,” Abria said.

The win also served as a good sendoff for Becaldo, who is playing in his last Nestea tournament. He is scheduled to start his apprenticeship after having graduated this year from his Nautical course.

Becaldo, however, is not discounting the possibility that he may aim for a grandslam next year if his schedule would permit it.

USJ-R looked headed to taking the title this year after building a two-point lead against UV with Uy continuing to score on rolloff shots, which were very effective in evading Abria’s blocks.

However, Abria slowly regained his form by slamming spikes that went beyond the reach of the USJ-R tossers.

Women’s category

In the women’s division, the Central Philippines University (CPU) tandem of Fiola Mae Ceballos and Jovelyn Gonzaga also defended their title with a 22-20, 21-18, outsmarting of University of Sto. Tomas (UST) manned by Maruja Banaticla and Judy Caballejo.