It will be the Philippines, represented by PLDT, versus Japan, which has Kobe Shinwa University, battling for all the marbles in the Premier Volleyball League Invitational.
It was forged by the smoldering fires of the Japanese college spikers’ come-from-behind 21-25, 17-25, 26-24, 25-22, 15-6 victory over the heartbroken Chery Tiggo Crossovers yesterday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
It was Kobe Shinwa’s fourth victory in five outings, which was good enough to send it to second spot behind PLDT, which swept the elimination round in five outings.
It also catapulted the league’s lone guest squad into the finale, which will be another knockout showdown slated tomorrow at the Big Dome where it would battle the High Speed Hitters – the PVL on Tour champions.
Sakura Furuta fuelled the furious comeback as she came alive in the final three sets with her 33 excellent sets.
Furuta’s magnificent playmaking resulted in a masterful 31-point effort from Nagisa Komatsuda and the strong hitting by Kokoro Yasuma, Arisu Ishikawa and Reira Miyazaki, who chipped in 16, 11 and 10 hits, respectively.
“In the first and second sets, I was not very good, I could not give the ball well to my spikers,” said Furuta via an interpreter. “But in the third set, my game returned and I set well.”
The Crossovers appeared headed to a relatively trouble-free win after they dominated the Japanese in the first two sets.
But things started to get uncomfortable for Chery Tiggo in the third set when Furuta sprung back to life from a mediocre start that jump started Kobe Shinwa’s mighty fightback that the former just had no answer to.
That result sent the Crossovers sprawling to a 3-2 card and down to a battle-for-third duel with the Creamline Cool Smashers also set tomorrow.
