Cignal HD Spikers at the Spikers' Turf Open Conference. –PVL PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines – Cignal won the knockout round for the fifth time after dominating Maverick, 25-20, 25-9, 25-12, in the Spikers' Turf Open Conference on Friday at the Ynares Sports Arena in Pasig City.
The HD Spikers completed an eight-game sweep before heading to the semifinals, marking their fifth time with a perfect record in the playoffs, including the 2016, 2019 and 2023 Open Conferences, as well as last year's Invitationals, where they lost to the winner -title game against Sta. Elena-Universidade Nacional.
“This is a great motivation for us because we have great momentum and morale to reach the semi-finals. But in the semifinals everything came back to zero. This 8-0 will be useless if we can’t play,” Cignal coach Dexter Clamor said in Filipino.
READ: Spikers' Turf: Cignal escapes VNS-Nasty to get closer to sweep
Bryan Bagunas returned to action with 10 points in two close sets after missing Cignal's last two games due to his commitments with Taiwanese club WinStreak.
Clamor, who relied on their second defenders in their hard-fought five-set victory over VNS-Nasty two days ago, allowed the same group to make up for their earlier failures, with Mark Calado leading the way with 13 points.
Lloyd Josafat also played two sets and scored nine points, while Wendel Miguel, JP Bugaoan and Alfred Valbuena had six points each.
“During our last game, our second six did not perform well. Today I allowed them to recover and they managed to perform better than in the last game”, said the Cignal coach.
The Maverick Hard Hitters fell to a 1-6 record with Razzel Palisoc and Jerome Cordez leading the team with eight and six points, respectively.
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