Photo by Tristan Tamayo/INQUIRER.net
MANILA, Philippines—Adamson University saw its hopes go up sky high only for University of Santo Tomas bring it back down to the ground in the two teams’ first meeting on opening weekend of the UAAP Season 81 women’s volleyball tournament.
The Lady Falcons came back from a two-set deficit only to falter in the fifth set as the Golden Tigresses took a 25-21, 25-21, 24-26, 24-26, 15-6 win Sunday at Mall of Asia Arena.
It was a painful loss but Adamson head coach Air Padda said her team is by all means not a pushover in the league.
“We’re not a deadbeat team, if anyone says we are, we’re not a deadbeat team,” said Padda. “I was proud of our defense today, I thought our blocking was solid. There’s just a few things we need to work on and that is experience, game experience for our setter and that’s just coming to go with time.”
Adamson does lack the experience in the UAAP especially with the departure of Jema Galanza, Mylene Paat, and Fhen Emnas.
The Lady Falcons’ roster is made up of seven rookies but has promising attacker in sophomore Chiara Permentilla and veteran leadership in fourth year opposite hitter Eli Soyud and fifth year Mary Joy Dacoron.
Soyud was also a champion with De La Salle back in Season 78 when she was a rookie.
The duo of Soyud and Dacoron, however, wasn’t able to offset the youth of the team against the Golden Tigresses especially in the fifth set when UST was able to show its composure.
UST was able to get a 5-0 start in the final set and that was essentially the start of the Lady Falcons’ demise.
What the Lady Falcons had going for them, though, was their blocking as they repeatedly denied UST star Cherry Rondina at the top albeit being a triple block.
Adamson attempted a total of 86 blocks, 32 more than what UST had, and scored 12 points off of them.
“I think we’re inexperienced and that was one of the reasons why we lost, especially in the fifth set,” said Padda. “It’s always rough when you lose on the fifth set but everyone did not give up. I was so proud of them and that to me is what Adamson volleyball is about.”
“There’s a lot of things we can take away from this to build on. I think that’s what our story is going to be this year, to keep building, keep improving.”