MANILA, Philippine – As the Premier Volleyball League Invitational Conference semifinals came to an end on Friday at the Philsports Arena in Pasig, F2 Logistics earned the other spot in the race for third by persevering through a tumultuous opening set game and holding off Kinh Bac-Bac Ninh of Vietnam for a 23 to 25, 25 to 19, 25 to 18, 25 to 20 victory.

The Cargo Movers overcame the pressure they put on themselves, reducing errors in the final three sets and relying on their renowned power game to hammer out strong finishes and stay on course to match their third-place finish in the All Filipino Conference. The rival team needed to defeat them in three or four sets in order to eliminate the winless PLDT High Speed Hitters for the bronze medal match against the Cignal HD Spikers.

Although PLDT actually had a 2 to 3 record and was tied with Cignal and F2 Logistics, the HD Spikers and the Logistics ultimately had the same number of tiebreak points (7 on set ratio), and they were able to progress. In the end, the High-Speed Hitters accrued 6 tiebreak points.

While everything was going on, Kinh Bac-Bac Ninh only managed to win two sets out of its five games.

At 4 p.m., F2 Logistics and Cignal compete for the bronze. At 6:30 p.m. on Sunday, the gold-medal match between Creamline and Kurashiki will begin.

At the time of publication, the Japanese and Cool Smashers, both of whom were holding 4 to 0 cards, were vying for first place.

Aby Marao excelled with 18 points, highlighted by five kill blocks, while Myla Pablo shone with 20 points, including 18 on assaults from both wings. Myla Pablo and Ivy Lacsina led F2 Logistics’ comeback with their powerful blasts from both sides.

Majoy Baron, a middle player, ultimately won the game and the spotlight after going into attack mode and matching Pablo’s 20-point output with a 15-hit performance, four blocks, and an ace.

She committed a service error on the subsequent play, Lacsina grabbed control with back-to-back hits, and Marao completed the victory with a power tip after a poor reception by Le Xuan to close the two hours and four minutes-long match.

Meanwhile, Japanese team Kurashiki defeated Kinh Bac-Bac Ninh in the remaining sets of their PVL match, winning the first set as they did last July 22.

In contrast, Kinh Bac-Bac Ninh continued to lose, falling in straight sets to local teams PLDT, Creamline, and Cignal before defeating F2 Logistics in the opening set with help from the Cargo Movers’ sloppy play. This was happening as the other visiting team kept winning and advanced to the final match.

Their advantage in attack points (15 to 11) and blocks (3 to 0) were nullified as a result of 14 flagrant unforced errors.

However, in the following three, the Cargo Movers came together and defeated the Vietnamese in final contests, pulling away from a close 18 to 17 score in the second, outscoring the Vietnamese.

For Kinh Bac-Bac Ninh, who concluded with 47 attack points compared to F2’s 63 and four blocks compared to the Cargo Movers’ impressive 13-block performance, Nguyen Huong scored 19 points.