AVC qualifiers: V-League selection breaks PH’s eight-year international silence
For those who know Philippine volleyball history, the mere fact the V-League selection went up against Vietnam last June 14th is reason enough to celebrate.
Yes, the more experienced Vietnamese volleybelles trounced our intrepid representatives to the Asian Volleyball Confederation (AVC) Southeastern Zonal Women’s Qualification Tournament for the 2014 World Championships in Italy, 25-9, 25-11, 25-18. Yes, there were a lot of chinks displayed by our players during the contest against the host nation—which was unfortunately not witnessed by our countrymen due to lack of international television coverage from the source. Yes, we have a long way to go in re-establishing our foothold in regional volleyball after a very long hiatus from international competition. But the mere fact the Philippines is represented for the first time on foreign soil is the first of many baby steps our nation is going to have to undertake in this arduous mission.
The last time we even had a legitimate national team that actually competed in an FIVB sanctioned tournament was way back during the 2005 Southeast Asian (SEA) Games which just so happened to be held here. The games were held in Bacolod and the Philippines captured its third straight bronze medal as Thailand took the gold while the Vietnamese settled for the silver. Of that squad—still under the old federation known as the Philippine Amateur Volleyball Association (PAVA), one remnant is still part of the team: skipper Rubie de Leon, now 30.
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Everyone else is new, and thanks to the efforts of the Sports Vision Management Group Inc.—which was able to put together a solid line-up even at the eleventh hour on the prodding of the Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) and the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC)—the Philippines is back in the mix.
For many of the team members, it was their first time to travel outside of the country. National University spiker Myla Pablo and Head Coach Edjet Mabbayad had never even had passports prior to now. And as the team gathered together at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) for their early morning flight to their point of entry in Ho Chi Minh city, they didn’t realize that they would spend the next fourteen hours travelling to their final destination of Quang Tri, a province in north central Vietnam.
“The (land) journey was so long,” libero Jheck Dionela recounted in the vernacular. “Some of us already threatened to get off the bus and walk home. And every time we’d see lights in the distance, we’d all be screaming coz we’d all think that was the place. It was very tiring.”
But de Leon, the most travelled among the players, hinted that this was not going to be an excursion but a business trip.
“We’re going there for a purpose,” the reigning Shakey’s V-League Final MVP explained in Tagalog when I gave her a ride to her home just before their departure. “The vacation will come later. We have to do our duty first.”
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On the morning of June 13th, the team went through their drills and finally got to see the opponents’ rosters. They realized that the tallest player of the host nation was “only” six feet tall, but Coach Roger Gorayeb was quick to point out that that might not even matter for them.
“They’ve had an eight year head start on us,” he said during the team’s recent send-off party. “We have a lot of catching up to do.”
True enough, despite being upbeat and enduring an opening ceremony that took over an hour—with all teams standing the whole time—the Vietnamese proceeded to dismantle the Filipinas with relentless quick-hits and exploited the team’s inability to handle receptions and digs—in spite of the presence of two of the best liberos in the land in Dionela and Jen Reyes. The massacre was over in less than an hour.
“We were all tense,” Dionela admitted after the game. “Most of us were first-timers and they (Vietnam) were really strong.
“I believe we really lacked preparation (after having only one week to train together) and many of us got disoriented during the game.”
The team was led in scoring by Ateneo wunderkind Alyssa Valdez who finished with nine markers followed by NU’s 6’4” teenage phenom Jaja Santiago’s six, older sister Din-Din’s five, La Salle Dasmariñas’ Iari Yongco with two and one point apiece for Pablo, Suzanne Roces, Maika Ortiz and Rhea Dimaculangan. De Leon, who scored thirteen points in the championship rubbermatch in the Shakey’s V-League just over a week ago, was held scorless along with Adamson’s Pau Soriano.
The Philippines next takes on Myanmar then rounds out the tournament against Indonesia.
I was waiting for many to begin mudslinging the team for losing in a horrid manner against the hosts. I was expecting a barrage of criticisms in saying that their performance against Vietnam humiliated a nation. I was awaiting something negative in the people’s reaction to such a lopsided defeat.
However, the only negative I encountered while monitoring the fans reactions while the match was ongoing in social media was that there was no live stream of the game and many expressed frustration in not having been able to visually support the girls in their first steps in a realm that is totally new to this generation of aficionados.
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The support for the squad is incredible, whether they triumph or whether they fall short. Now that’s passion. I once said the volleyball fans are the most critical, but also the most zealous. That was evident against Vietnam when the fans never quit on the team and the hashtag #OneForTheCountry trended worldwide.
That’s who they truly are, anyway. They are One for the Country. If we can set aside the sideshows and concentrate on what really is important, then maybe we’ll be doing the thrashing soon. Whatever the result of the final matches will be, these twelve brave souls will come home as heroines; champions of a new reason to celebrate in the sporting arena. We’re not far off from the competition, only a bit rusty. We have the tools, we have the technology, and we have the talent. It’s time to build from this foundation that these volleybelles laid out for us.
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A new era has arrived. Congratulations in advance to the new pioneers of Philippine volleyball.
Follow Noel Zarate on Twitter (@NoelZarate)
