THE PVL’s youngest and second-shortest import chalked up a towering performance to begin her first pro overseas stint in the Philippines.
ZUS Coffee’s Anna DeBeer normed 27.5 points in her first two winning outings, highlighted by a 37-piece against Chery Tiggo EV last week in Cavite.
That stands as the second-highest single-game scoring haul by a foreign guest player this conference, one shy of Farm Fresh’s Helene Rousseaux who scored 38 in her debut.
At just 24 years old, the six-feet outside hitter refuses to be tamed in an import class of decorated veterans and former national team stars.
After all, for DeBeer, age, height and all those figures are just numbers on paper.
“I didn't even know that I was the shortest and the [second] youngest until someone told me the other day,” DeBeer told SPIN.ph.
“But I think age is just a number and height is just a number. I don't really worry about that and just work on ways that I can improve in my overall game.”
Her strongest suit might not be her hops or her international pedigree, but ZUS Coffee sure has an eager student of the game onboard.
She’s one to have steered US NCAA Division I powerhouse University of Louisville Cardinals to national championships in years past, on top of her US Major League Volleyball experience with a formidable Indy Ignite side
Now tasked to carry the load for an on-the-rise ZUS Coffee side, DeBeer isn’t adding more weight for herself than needed in this new chapter of hers.
“At the end of the day, it's just volleyball. I'm continuing to learn and I think I've learned a lot from being on this team because obviously, there are some things that are different and just different technical things in the sport,” the Thunderbelles reinforcement said.
“I’ve had a big learning moment but at the end of the day, we're all just trying to get better and I'm just trying to help the team so it's not too much of a difference.”
Fear DeBeer
Before arriving in Manila, DeBeer was dealt two ankle injuries in a span of three months.
A career-threatening setback in Turkiye and a posterior cruciate ligament damage (PCL) in the US NCAA nearly hampered DeBeer’s ability to walk altogether.
Half a year later, her supposed overseas debut was held back by the PVL and PNVF’s brief impasse last Tuesday.
The moral of the story, in other words, for DeBeer was to simply stay patient.
“I’ve definitely had a lot of ‘trust in the process’ moments throughout my career and it does take a lot of patience,” DeBeer said.
“But then at the end of the day, I'm just super grateful to be healthy and be here and be able to play. It's been a long journey, but I'm just super grateful to be able to do what I love every day.”
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