Teams Choco Mucho and Rebisco in the AVC club tournament. PH VOLLEYBALL PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines—The meeting of two Filipino teams in the 2021 AVC Asian Women’s Club Volleyball Championship on Wednesday became somewhat of a gauge for both Choco Mucho and Rebisco.
Kalei Mau-led Team Choco Mucho, which had the more veterans on the team, beat Team Rebisco in four sets, 22-25, 25-17, 25-19, 25-17, in the 5th-7th semifinals.
“The game was really high energy. It was really a lot of fun to play,” said Mau. “It was challenging playing against a younger team. It was really great to be able to just find their tendencies and also work on ours and just work our creativity as a team.”
Although Team Rebisco and Team Choco Mucho are not technically clubs, they are made up of national team veterans and hopefuls.
Both have players who have already represented the Philippines but Rebisco is the side with the younger ones including Imee Hernandez, Mhicaela Belen, Bernadett Pepito, Jen Nierva, Faith Nisperos, Kamille Cal, and Ivy Lacsina.
The win gave Choco Mucho the opportunity to finish as high as fifth as it takes on nine-time Kazakh champion Zhetysu in the classification match while Rebisco settled for seventh in the competition.
Choco Mucho head coach Odjie Mamon admitted he felt a bit bad beating the younger Rebisco squad as one more game could’ve helped with the team’s maturity and given the players more exposure.
“Honestly, I didn’t want to beat Rebisco, I really wanted the younger players to have more experience in this tournament, to get more exposure,” said Mamon. “But props to Mylene [Paat] and MJ [Phillips], they did a really good job today. Deanna [Wong] also controlled the pace of our offense today.”