The defending champion Perpetual Junior Altas target an eighth consecutive finals’ appearance when they take on the Mapua Red Robins in the Final Four of the National Collegiate Athletic Association Season 99 Juniors’ Volleyball Tournament on Thursday at the Arellano Gym in Pasay City.
Meanwhile, the Arellano Braves face Lyceum of the Philippines University GenTri in the other semifinal pairing at 9 a.m.
Coach Sandy Rieta’s Junior Altas and Arellano University both hold twice-to-beat advantages in the semis, where they only need to win once, while Mapua and LPU have to beat them twice to enter the best-of-three finals on May 16.
In the girls’ division, the Arellano Lady Braves will face off against the Emilio Aguinaldo College Lady Brigadiers, while the Junior Altas Girls battle the LPU Junior Pirates.
Arellano finished no. 1 and while Perpetual coach Jason Sapin’s Junior Girls finished at no. 2 at the end of the six-team elims.
LPU and EAC were ranked third and fourth, respectively, in the tournament.
Both Arellano and Perpetual hold the twice-to-beat edge in the girls’ division.
The EAC Girls were champions in the first edition (Season 98) with four entry schools, including Perpetual, Arellano and EAC.
If the Junior Altas advance to the finals, it will be their eighth consecutive year of making it to the championship round since 2014. They were defeated by EAC during the Season 89 finals.
The Junior Altas captured their seventh win in eight games at the expense of the La Salle Greenhills-Greenies (25-14, 25-16) in the single-round elimination, to clinch the no. 2 spot and twice-to-beat advantage in the Final Four at the end of the elimination round last Monday.
At the end of the single-round elimination in the Boys’ Division, Arellano and Perpetual finished with identical 7-1 records, while Malayan School had a 6-2 slate.
The rest of the elimination round ranking is as follows — LPU (5-3), Letran Squires (5-3), EAC (3-5), SBU (2-6), JRU (1-7) and La Salle Greenhills (0-8).
Arellano got the top spot because of the win-over-the-other rule as the former beat the latter in the elims, while LPU entered the semis at fourth spot due to the quotient ratio scores of 1.667 for the Junior Pirates and 1.429 for the Letran Squires.