Golden Tigresses seek fourth straight victory

THE UST Golden Tigresses seek their fourth consecutive win as they face the UP Fighting Maroons in the UAAP Season 87 women's volleyball tournament at the Mall of Asia Arena on Wednesday.

The Tigresses battle the Fighting Maroons in the main event of a quadruple-header at 4 p.m.

UP faces UE at 10 p.m. as UP takes on UST at 12 p.m. in both men's matches followed by the women's match between UE and FEU.

After the season on a wrong foot, losing to the FEU Lady Tamaraws, the Tigresses seemed to have found their old deadly form, something that propelled them to a runner-up finish last year.

The Kungfu Reyes-mentored team defeated the Adamson Lady Falcons, 25-21, 20-25, 25-13, 27-25, to rise to the second-best 3-1 record behind the 4-0 NU Lady Bulldogs.

UST team captain and reigning Best Libero Detdet Pepito said that despite the win streak, the Tigresses are far from satisfied with what they're showing.

"It's still a long way to go, but I keep telling them to hang in there because we're getting wins. However, we're still not satisfied with what we're doing," said Pepito.

"We just need to work twice as hard, especially in training, since we're also lacking rest because the games are back-to-back. That's why Reg [Jurado] says, "Mind over matter," because we're all going through it for sure. It really comes down to heart and determination."

The Tigresses face a Maroons side that have lost back-to-back games after starting the season with two straight wins.

UP is in a four-way tie at third place with La Salle, FEU and Adamson.

Fighting Maroons head coach Benson Bocboc expressed confidence that his team can keep up with the rest of the league despite its current skid.

"We'll work on improving our ball distribution. But other than that, I don't know, from what I see, I think we can compete with anyone," said Bocboc.

"It just so happened that DLSU got a 3-1 win. But I still believe that with our style of play, we can match up with anyone."