Eya Laure (8) and the UST Golden Tigresses during their game against Adamson in the Shakey’s Super League on Saturday at Rizal Memorial Coliseum. – The match won by UST in five sets ended at 1:14 a.m. on Sunday. Photo from Shakey’s Super League
MANILA, Philippines—The Shakey’s Super League (SSL) has decided to suspend its Sunday matches at Rizal Memorial Coliseum due to Super Typhoon Karding.
SSL President Dr. Ian Laurel on Sunday morning released a statement, canceling the games as the northern portion of Metro Manila (Pasig, Marikina, Quezon City, San Juan, Mandaluyong, Manila, Navotas, Malabon, Caloocan, Valenzuela) is currently placed under Signal No. 3 as of posting time.
“The organizers decided to cancel today’s games, Sept. 25, Sunday, at Rizal Memorial Coliseum due to Super Typhoon Karding that is expected to make landfall today. With this, Metro Manila has been placed under Signal No. 3 Category,” said Laurel.
Veteran coach Jerry Yee was supposed to seek payback after his squads, College of Saint Benilde and Adamson suffered separate five-set meltdowns against Far Eastern University and University of Santo Tomas, respectively.
St. Benilde was scheduled to debuting Letran in Pool D at 12 noon, while Adamson was slated against Emilio Aguinaldo College at 2 p.m. Pool B teams UST and Lyceum were supposed to meet at 4. p.m., as University of the Philippines’ new head coach Shaq Delos Santos will have to wait for his debut after their 6 p.m. game against Mapua was canceled.
The league will adjust the canceled games and promise the ticket holders to honor their tickets when it comes up with a new schedule for the playdate.
“All ticket holders of Sept. 25 games will be honored on the new schedule. Matches for Oct. 1 and 2 will be adjusted to accommodate the canceled matches of Sept. 25. Further advisory will be made. On behalf of the organizers, thank you for your understanding and support. Stay safe everyone,” Laurel said.
SSL’s opening day lasted for 13 hours after four games, which had a total of 19 sets, and opening ceremony after the first two games.
The first game between Mapua and University of the East started at 12:31 p.m. and ended at 3 p.m., causing the delay of the second match between San Beda and University of Perpetual Help, who were supposed to play at 2 p.m.
The final game between UST and Adamson started at 10:51 p.m. and ended early Sunday morning at 1:14 a.m. Eya Laure nailed the game-winning attack in the fifth set to complete Tigresses’ comeback, 25-20, 27-29, 15-25, 29-27, 15-10, over the Lady Falcons.
Laurel apologized to the teams and fans after the opening ceremonies and vowed to improve their schedule.
“We’d like to apologize because we’re really running late. The games earlier really took a long time and of course, we had to go with our opening ceremonies. But we’ll improve on that,” he said.
UST star Laure still thanked their fans at the venue and live stream viewers for staying up late.