Nxled rips Farm Fresh, books breakthrough PVL playoff appearance

July 28 ------ FOR the first time, Nxled is playoff-bound. The Chameleons scored a methodical 25-13, 25-16, 25-14 sweep of Farm Fresh to advance to the next phase of the 2025 PVL on Tour in Cebu City.

EJ Laure-Cariño paved the way for Nxled’s historic breakthrough with 19 points on 16 attacks, two aces and one block, ahead of a solid 10-piece from Chiara Permentilla. Nxled finished second in Pool A with a 4-1 (win-loss) record, joining PLDT and Cignal as the first three outright preseason quarterfinalists.

The two-year-old franchise is assured of at least matching its best finish in a PVL tournament of eighth place in the 2024 All-Filipino Conference. Its three-game unbeaten run ended, Farm Fresh dropped to the knockout round as the No. 3 seed in Pool A and will face Pool B’s winless sixth-seed Capital1.

Making the win more special, Nxled coach Ettore Guidetti emerged triumphant in his first PVL duel with compatriot Alessandro Lodi. The longtime colleagues share the same Italian hometown of Modena. "First of all, I'm really happy. Second thing, I'm really proud," Guidetti said. "Right now, we are consistent in system and out of system. Also, today, they served really good. We were out of system. We set a high ball, and we solved immediately the situation. So right now, we got a system, and the system is working itself," Guidetti said.

Nxled hardly broke a sweat in a match where it led by as much as 11 points in the first set, 10 in the third and nine in the second. The Chameleons even doubled the Foxies' attack output, 36 to 18, on top of seven blocks and seven more aces at eight to one. The final nail on the coffin of Farm Fresh's three-game win streak was its error-plagued performance. It yielded a total of 24 unforced errors in just three sets. Trisha Tubu paced the Foxies' second loss of the preseason tournament as their lone double-digit scorer with 12 points.

Source: spin.ph