Games Tuesday
1:30 p.m. – ZUS Coffee vs Nxled
4 p.m. – Akari vs Choco Mucho
6:30 p.m. – Creamline vs Cignal
With a quarterfinals seat already secured, Farm Fresh turned its attention to seizing the No. 1 spot – and did so emphatically.
The Foxies dismantled the Galeries Tower Highrisers, 25-23, 25-13, 25-11, to vault past the idle ZUS Coffee Thunderbelles and claim the top position in the PVL Reinforced Conference leaderboard at the Ynares Center in Montalban, Rizal on Saturday, Nov. 15.
But the one-hour, 23-minute victory, dominant as it looked on paper, was not without an early scare.
Farm Fresh entered the match heavily favored, yet initially came out flat and unfocused, allowing the Highrisers to match them point for point. That sluggish start pushed head coach Alessandro Lodi to his boiling point late in the opening frame.
As the scoreboard flashed 20-19 for Galeries Tower, Lodi gathered his team during a timeout – and unloaded.
“You were slow, too slow!” he barked, turning away in frustration as the players absorbed his words. The normally composed Italian mentor’s rare outburst sent a clear message: standards would not slip, not with the top seed on the line.
And the Foxies heard him – loud and clear.
Almost instantly, Farm Fresh flipped the switch. A renewed energy rippled through the squad as they strung together four straight points, highlighted by a Ces Molina kill that restored order. The set still tightened at 24-23, but Eli Rousseaux sealed the deal, blasting a down-the-line rocket to close out the opener.
Rousseaux had earlier pushed Farm Fresh to set point with a clever back-row drop that caught the Highrisers’ defense frozen, symbolizing the shift in momentum that Lodi’s fiery huddle sparked.
From there, the Foxies never looked back.
Learning from their shaky start, they unleashed the full might of their power game, overwhelming Galeries Tower with heavy swings, solid blocking and airtight floor coverage. The second and third sets became a showcase of depth and superiority, as Farm Fresh scored almost at will while suffocating the Highrisers’ attempts to respond.
With the win, Farm Fresh improved to 6-1, tying ZUS Coffee but snatching the No. 1 spot with 18 points, one ahead of the Thunderbelles with the race to the top tightening with just two playdates left in the double-phase preliminaries.
“Well, what changed is that the team did not want to be yelled at anymore. I know what’s gonna happen, that we’re gonna start lame, waiting kind of, you know, the game to come to us and I’m gonna have to wake them up. And it’s exactly what happened,” said Lodi.
“Yeah, so that was not great. Anyway, we kept working, we cleaned things up and, you know, we took care of business. That is good. The goal for today was really to keep preparing, keep working. We know we’re in the quarterfinal, but we have still a long way ahead of us,” he added.
Truly, Farm Fresh faces a tougher road – a final elimination showdown against contender Chery Tiggo on Thursday, while ZUS Coffee battles lighter-ranked Nxled on Tuesday.
Also lurking is PLDT, carrying a 5-1 slate. The High Speed Hitters were playing the EV Crossovers at press time, with the result potentially reshaping the already chaotic battle for the top seed.
Rousseaux delivered another stellar outing, finishing with 19 points, including three blocks and three aces, earning yet another Best Player of the Game citation. She later echoed her coach’s frustration while acknowledging their slow start.
“Sometimes when you start like that, you lose focus,” said Rousseaux, who also had seven excellent digs. “I felt it from the beginning, and we needed to get our focus back. I think that’s what coach (Lodi) meant.”
Lodi, meanwhile, didn’t mince words.
“This might be enough to win this match, but not enough for the succeeding matches,” he said, emphasizing that complacency has no place in a championship-chasing team.
Rousseaux agreed, noting that the game served as a timely wake-up call.
“We should always play our best and never let our guards down,” she said.
And from the second set onward, the Foxies did exactly that – showing why they now sit atop the standings, and why they intend to stay there.
Trisha Tubu dished out another superb performance in support of Rousseaux, scoring 16 points, while Lorene Toring stood out in the middle with 11 points, highlighted by four blocks. Rizza Cruz added six markers, and playmaker Alohi Robins-Hardy contributed five points on top of 23 excellent sets.
Farm Fresh dominated in all scoring skills, attacks (47-34) and blocks (8-1), and scored seven aces against Galeries Tower’s three.
For the Highrisers, Jelena Cvijovic tallied 12 points, Ysa Jimenez chipped in nine, and both France Ronquillo and Dim Pacres finished with five points apiece. After nearly pulling off a shocker in the opening frame, the Highrisers failed to keep up with the Foxies’ momentum in the next two sets, dropping to 0-7 alongside the Chameleons.
