By Kyle Terwilliger
Variety News Staff

THE evening would begin with a Royals win and would end in the same fashion. The Notre Dame Royals made their trip into the Jungle a successful one as both the JV and Varsity squads came out on top of the Father Duenas Friars.
The JV team would win in three sets winning the last set 15-6 to take the game. With that done the Varsity teams would begin their battle of the night. Notre Dame would begin with the ball and would immediately go on a 6-0 run with Paul Nieves serving an ace to begin the game.
The 6-0 run would force the Friars to call a timeout. Out of the timeout Royals’ Paul Newbury’s kill would go wide giving the Friars their first point of the game and giving the serve to the Friars’ Sang Woo Choi.
Both teams would then trade points back and forth, but Sang Woo Choi would come up with a huge block to bring the Friars within two points of the Royals. Paul Newbury would then have back to back kills to give the Royals the 16-10 lead. After an unforced error by the Friars they would call timeout to talk things over.
Sang Woo Choi would get the kill coming out of the timeout, but the Royals would respond strong with Paul Newbury serving four straight points to push the lead to 22-11.
Father Duenas would not roll over though, going on a 6-1 run of their own making the score 23-17 in favor of the Royals. The Royals would then score two straight to take the first set 25-17. The Royals would keep the pressure on in the second set when they scored the first point of the second set. The teams would trade points back and forth, but with the score at five a piece the Royals would score three straight points to force another timeout by the Friars. The teams would then trade mini runs of two or three points at a time making the score 13-9 in the Royals favor.
The Royals would then prove why they have one of the best records on the island as they went on a 10-4 run pushing their lead to 23-13. The Friars would then attempt a comeback but would be stopped short with the Royals taking the second set 25-15. The Royals coach Dohn So would comment about his teams focus going into the playoffs after the game.
“We have to treat every game as if it was the championship game, there can be no slacking on our part. The league is pretty even so we can lose any game if we lose focus.” So would then say, “Going into the playoffs we need to work on our communication, that’s a big thing for us is communication.”