UAAP 80 Volleyball Preview: UE ready to shed losing mentality

Head coach: Francis Vicente
Last season: 1-13 (8th)
Key holdovers: Shaya Adorador, Roselle Baliton, Judith Abil, Kat Arado
Key losses: Angelica Dacaymat, Jasmine Alcayde

University of the East remained at the bottom of the standings in another woeful performance in the UAAP Season 79 women’s volleyball tournament.

The Lady Red Warriors did a repeat of their sorry 1-13 finish from Season 78, and after back-to-back years winning just two combined games they are hell-bent on shaking off the reputation as being pushovers.

Head coach Francis Vicente said they want to change their mentality that they are already defeated even before playing the game.

“We really want to overcome the mentality where they think they’ve already lost the moment they see their opponents,” said Vicente in Filipino.

“When they think that ‘oh we can’t do this, but we’ll do everything be it three or five sets we will do everything to win,’ that will be our mindset.”

And with Vicente instilling that fighting spirit and attitude in his team, he wants to finally see the Lady Warriors avoid final place in Season 80.

Leading the team toward that goal are open hitter Shaya Adorador, setter Roselle Baliton, and Season 77 Rookie of the Year Kat Arado who all played for Generika-Ayala in the Philipine Superliga

The rest of the Lady Warriors also managed played in the PSL All-Filipino conference under the Cherrylume franchise.

“Our goal is to overcome our reputation that we were in the bottom places last year,” said Vicente. “We should improve by at least two spots, and we should always be aiming to improve.”