FRESH off her eighth Premier Volleyball League (PVL) title with Creamline, Jema Galanza bolstered Alas Pilipinas' core of young guns and veterans ahead of the 2024 FIVB Women’s Volleyball Challenger Cup on July 4 to 7 at the Ninoy Aquino Stadium.
READ: Alas' Laure, Solomon, Nierva likely to miss FIVB Challenger Cup
But eagle-eyed fans were quick to notice one bizarre detail in the squad list that appeared on the tournament website: Galanza was listed as a libero instead of her natural outside hitter role.
Should Chery Tiggo duo Eya Laure and Jen Nierva both miss the Challenger Cup, Alas will be left with three outside hitters excluding Galanza in newcomer Bella Belen, Sisi Rondina and Vanie Gandler.
But crucially, Nierva’s possible absence could leave the nationals with just one natural libero in Dawn Macandili-Catindig.
Will Jema REALLY play libero?
Alas considering Galanza to take on libero duties isn’t a random choice by any means.
In fact, over in the men's team, another MVP-caliber ace spiker in Josh Ybañez played as a libero during Alas' AVC Challenge Cup stint in Bahrain last June.
Galanza finished the preliminaries of the recently-concluded 2024 PVL All-Filipino Conference in the Top 10 of the digging department (2.55 excellent digs per set) — one of just two spikers in the list apart from reigning league MVP Brooke Van Sickle who ranked seventh.
The five-time PVL best outside hitter and former MVP also had the second-highest number of both excellent and attempted receptions for a non-libero with 84 of 183 total receptions (41.53% efficiency) behind Akari’s Grethcel Soltones (97 of 201; 44.28% efficiency).
Alas head coach Jorge Souza de Brito, however, gave two concrete reasons why Galanza’s name was thrown in the mix for the second libero role: Nierva’s expected absence and a minor foot injury.
“Until now, we don’t have Jen (Nierva) and Eya (Laure) from Chery and we cant bring new players so we need to find one inside our group. But (it’s) not confirmed yet who will be (the second libero),” de Brito told SPIN.ph on Sunday evening.
“(Jema Galanza) hasn’t jumped for several days because she fell on her foot. It was painful, but as I said before, not yet decided.”
Since the incident, Galanza is moving better and is making up for lost time before the Challenger Cup goes underway.
“Something happened (to Jema’s foot). Now, she is feeling better, but she didn’t jump for days.”
May it be on offense or defense, Galanza is all set for her Alas debut on July 5 against regional powerhouse Vietnam in the knockout quarterfinals.
The Challenger Cup champion will secure the last coveted spot for the 2025 edition of the Volleyball Nations League (VNL).
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