Games on Sunday (The Arena, San Juan)
2 p.m. — UP vs St. Benilde
4 p.m. — Ateneo vs SSC

Ateneo and defending champion San Sebastian hammered out straight-set wins to cruise into the quarterfinals of the sixth Shakey’s V-League with idle Adamson University in tow on Friday at The Arena in San Juan City.

The Lady Eagles thumped the College of St. Benilde Lady Blazers, 25-22, 25-13, 25-18, while the SSC lasses banked on the heroics of Analyn Benito to repulse the spirited charge of the Lyceum Lady Pirates, 25-13, 28-26, 25-21.

With the victories, Ateneo improved to 3-2 to tie Adamson at fourth while SSC hiked its record to 3-1 for solo third.

The three teams thus joined early quarterfinalists University of Santo Tomas (5-0) and Far Eastern University (5-1), leaving the fight for the sixth and final quarterfinals berth to CSB (1-4), and winless Lyceum (0-5) and University of the Philippines (0-5).

Flaunting a near-flawless game, the Lady Eagles pounced on the short-handed Lady Blazers to move into the next stage presented by Shakey’s Pizza and organized by Sports Vision.

Save for a tight first set where they had to battle back from 19-21, the Lady Eagles dominated the match with assortment of shots, which they highlighted with 10 service aces and 45 attacks compared to CSB’s three aces and 25 attacks.

So superior was Ateneo that all its 13 spikers, excluding Libero Stephanie Gabriel, scored at least a point in a match that took 73 minutes to finish.

The Lady Blazers looked out of sync without setter Ren Agero and Giza Yumang, who are in Iloilo City competing for the school’s beach volley pair in the University Games.

“Medyo tumataas na yung laro namin compared sa past two games,” said Ateneo coach Clint Malazo.