Head coach: Ramil De Jesus
Last Season: 11-3 (no.2 seed, champion)
Key holdovers: Mary Joy Baron, Kianna Dy, Dawn Macandili, Desiree Cheng, Aduke Ogunsanya
Key loss: Kim Fajardo
De La Salle is gunning for its third straight title in the UAAP women’s volleyball championship, but such a daunting task isn’t new for the mighty Lady Spikers.
The last team to successfully go on a three-peat was La Salle when the girls in green-and-white won the big trophy from Seasons 73 to 75.
And the Lady Spikers have set their sights on a sixth championship in eight years, the most titles in an eight-year period since University of Santo Tomas won seven straight from 1985 to 1991.
La Salle, however, will go into Season 80 on a new slate especially after the iconic setter Kim Fajardo graduated in 2017.
“We’re back to zero,” said defending MVP and team captain Mary Joy Baron in Filipino. “The past season’s title will be our motivation because we know we have to defend the championship.”
“But the team will have a new composition, Michelle [Cobb] will now be our setter, so for me everything’s back to zero,” added Baron.
Cobb, who is on her second year, will take on the place Fajardo, who won three Best Setter awards.
Baron and the other veterans, though, promised to make it easy for Cobb to transition from a substitute to the team’s main playmaker.
“They [the veterans] were very flexible towards their relationship with me,” said Cobb. “They’re adjusting and they’re always telling me that if I draw the ire of coach Ramil [De Jesus] they’ll just keep motivating me and telling me that I am part of the backbone of the team.”
Kianna Dy, Season 78’s Finals MVP, was there for Cobb when things got too difficult for the sophomore setter.
“I actually told her that her style of play is different from ate Kim’s so we don’t necessarily want her to be exactly like ate Kim,” said Dy. “She has her own strengths, her own weaknesses, ate Kim has her won strengths and her own weaknesses.”
“I just tell her to do her best and that we’re all behind her and that she’s not alone,” added Dy.
And with the veterans showing support for their young 18-year-old setter, another figurehead in the team is confident La sale won’t go down easily.
Dawn Macandili, who was named as the 2nd Best Libero in the 2017 AVC Asian Senior Women’s Volleyball Championship, promised La Salle would be there until the very end to defend the crown.
“My confidence is really high right now with this team,” said Macandili in Fiipino. “My teammates are there, my coaches are there to throw us their support no matter what so I’m really confident we’ll go a long way this year.”