Japan training for Asiad-bound national volleybelles

Volleyball national team head coach Shaq delos Santos talks to the players after their training session on Thursday. Photo by Bong Lozada

The Philippine women’s national volleyball team will hold a training camp in Japan in August to better their chances of coming up with a competitive stint in the 2018 Asian Games.

The Japan stint is expected to provide the team a better preparation for the squad, which has been the target of critics questioning its inclusion to the quadrennial event.

The Nationals are getting exposure via the Philippine Superliga, which accepted the squad as a guest team in the ongoing invitational conference.

The team thwarted Smart-Army, 25-16, 25-17, 25-17, Thursday at Filoil Flying V Centre in San Juan.

Down 11-16 in the third set, the Nationals unleashed a blistering 14-1 surge to seal the outcome.

“Smart helped us be alert especially in their third set performances,” said Philippines head coach Shaq Delos Santos.

But team captain Aby Maraño said the Japan camp would accelerate their preparations if only for the fact that the players’ club commitments would be set aside to allow them to focus solely on the national squad.

“We haven’t had a training where the team is complete due to commitments to our club teams so I cannot measure our performance yet. We will see after the training camp,” she said in Filipino.

The former La Salle star said the Asian Games would also double as their preparation for the Southeast Asian Games, which the Philippines will host next year.

“I’m looking forward to the experience of playing with seasoned players in the Asian Games for us to be familiar with their playing styles,” she said.

“We will practice whatever skill or lesson we get from there so that we’ll know what to prepare for the SEA Games,” she added. —WITH A REPORT FROM JUSTIN ROBERT VALENCIA