BIÑAN, Laguna—The Philippines took an emphatic opening game win in the AVC Asian Senior Women’s Volleyball Championship on Wednesday, and the talismanic Alyssa Valdez hopes the Filipinos could build on that confidence-booster in the coming days.
“We’re really getting our confidence and we’re hoping we can bring this confidence to future games,” said Valdez at Alonte Sports Arena.
“And of course this is also in preparation for the Southeast Asian Games,” she added.
Valdez was a picture of confidence in the Philippines’ first game with her game-high 14 points on 13 of 21 spikes.
The opening win over Hong Kong, she said, was just a part of the process they’re looking to complete in the tournament.
The Philippines’ 1-0 card puts the team at an early position atop Pool A and another win will see it strut to the quarterfinals.
“We have a bigger goal, and the whole team’s mind-set is to achieve that bigger goal of advancing,” said Valdez. “This game was really for our country. We really wanted to show everyone that we’ve prepared hard for this tournament while we were in Japan and now that we’re here, we’re also preparing for the SEA Games.”
Meanwhile, skipper Mika Reyes admitted the Philippines could have gotten off to a better start against Hong Kong.
“There’s still the first-game jitters and I’ve always said that our camp wasn’t that long; it was just two or three weeks,” said Reyes in Filipino after scoring six points in the win. “But we still applied the patterns and the lessons we’ve learned during our Japan training camp.”
The Philippines went to Japan in preparation for the AVC tournament and the Kuala Lumpur SEA Games.
Substitutes Kianna Dy and Gen Casugod were visibly nervous during their brief time on the floor with the two unable to put on points and instead produced errors late in the match.
Reyes was pleased with how her team performed but she knows they can perform better in the coming days.
“We’re happy with how we played,” said Reyes. “We just need to up our confidence and increase our intensity in the next games.”