ON the eve of Alas Pilipinas’ tournament-opener versus Australia in the 2024 AVC Challenge Cup for Women at the historic Rizal Memorial Coliseum, the Philippines turned in its official 14-woman squad that came with one significant surprise.
Although all 14 national team members were revealed prior to the roster submission, their roles and positions weren’t set in stone — particularly on the offensive end.
Six attackers were named to the squad — five of whom are natural outside hitters for their respective college or pro teams. Only last-minute replacement Arah Panique from UAAP Season 86 champion side National University is a true opposite spiker.
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By virtue of necessity to balance out Alas’ on-court rotations throughout the tournament, a positional switch had to be done for one of five Filipina outside hitters.
And Alas head coach Jorge Souza de Brito’s chosen one to take on an unorthodox spiking role than her natural position: La Salle ace spiker and former UAAP MVP Angel Canino.
After watching Australia’s opening win over a young Chinese Taipei side closely from the bleachers, de Brito shared his rationale for choosing Canino to take on the opposite spiker role alongside Panique.
“We don’t have opposites there (in the squad) so we had to try all the girls that we have. Arah (Panique) is the only one who’s really an opposite spiker there, but there are other girls who also have the background and played (opposite) before.
“Faith (Nisperos) played in Ateneo as an opposite. Also Angel (Canino) played a long time ago as an opposite,” said de Brito.
It is worth nothing, however, that the pair were listed and mainly played as outside hitters in their UAAP careers.
With time and training constraints to consider, adjusting to the demands of such tight circumstances is a necessity for de Brito and the rest of Alas Pilipinas.
“We’re trying to adjust. That’s what we have to need here in the Philippines. Since the players are already there and we have the good players, we’ll go and try to fix this (as we go in the tournament),” the outgoing nationals coach added.
First day jitters?
Even the Aussies, Asia’s 10th-ranked women’s volleyball nation, weren’t spared from a shaky start as they yielded the opening set to the tournament’s youngest and smallest team in Chinese Taipei before reverse-sweeping the next three sets.
Although rusts and cobwebs prove to be inevitable in tournamentdebuts, he expects his newly-assembled side to start strong against an Aussies team that is expected to pounce harder in its second pool play match.
“I think the first day is always hard. If you’re gonna measure them on how (Australia) played, I’m sure that they’ll play much better tomorrow because the first day is always hard.”
De Brito added: “They made a lot of mistakes, they lost the first set, even giving a lot of chances (to Chinese Taipei). For tomorrow, it will be a different game for sure.”
Australia head coach Russell Borgeaud, a veteran mentor who carries Olympic pedigree like de Brito, is wary of an unpredictable Philippine team — more so on home soil.
“We always talk about how all we can ever do is the best we can on a given day. If our best is good enough to win, we’ll take that. But we don’t know Philippines,” said Borgeaud.
“The last time we played them two years ago here (Philippines), they were very strong and we lost in five sets. So with a good crowd, it’s gonna be a very tough match but we’ll just hope it’s also a very good match. That’s all I can hope for,” he added.
In closing, de Brito gave some fighting words to rally the country on.
“Expect that we can do much better than them in the first day,” de Brito said.
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