La Salle’s Angel Canino reacts during a game against UST in the UAAP Season 85 women’s volleyball Final Four. UAAP PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines—Angel Canino shrugged off the MVP chants on Wednesday, stressing that her main goal is to bring back the championship to La Salle in the UAAP Season 85 women’s volleyball tournament.
The prized rookie rose to the occasion in her first Final Four games as she unleashed a game-high 19 points on top of 10 digs to book La Salle’s second straight trip to the Finals and eliminate No. 4 seed University of Santo Tomas, 26-24, 25-22, 20-25, 25-19, before a crowd of 6,694 at Smart Araneta Coliseum.
La Salle faithfuls serenaded Canino with MVP chants out of the 6,694 gate attendance at the Big Dome during the closing moments of the fourth set.
“Nagulat nalang po ako na habang nagsserve ako, nagcha-chant sila. Hindi ko naman masyado iniisip. Sinasabi ko nga sa sarili ko, focus lang, focus lang. Hindi pa tapos yung laban, nasa semis ka pa lang,” said Canino after the game. “Ibinabalewala ko lang po yung sinasabi ng mga tao kasi naglalaro pa. Hindi pa tapos yung laro.”
The 19-year-old outside spiker has been having a superb rookie year so far as she is tipped to win the Rookie of the Year plum and also emerged as a Season MVP after leading La Salle to a 13-1 record and bringing the team to the Finals for the 20th time under 11-time champion coach Ramil De Jesus.
Canino’s focus, however, is on La Salle’s quest to end a five-year title drought.
“Yun po yung goal namin sa team and yun po yung goal ng bawat isa sa amin na mag-champion. Hindi yung mga individual awards or kung ano ‘man diyan. Yung goal namin is mag-champion,” she said. “After niyan, doon namin maipapakita na eto kami, La Salle kami, kaya namin.”
(Winning the championship is the goal of our team and each one of us. Not any individual awards or anything. If we will achieve it, we will be able to show what La Salle is and prove that we can.)
Standing in La Salle’s way is defending champion National University, which dispatched Adamson in four sets to nail the last finals berth.
Game 1 of the best-of-three championship series is on Sunday at Araneta Coliseum.