UAAP: UST Tigresses eager to build on promising first round showing
Detdet Pepito and the UST Golden Tigresses during a UAAP Season 87 women’s volleyball game against NU Lady Bulldogs. –MARLO CUETO/INQUIREr.net
MANILA, Philippines —While the five-set meltdown to National University exposed some of their flaws, it also showed that UST Tigresses are capable of giving the defending champions a run for their money despite the short-handed roster.
UST ended the first round UAAP Season 87 women’s volleyball tournament with a promising 5-2 card despite missing some key players from last year’s Finals run, and libero Detdet Pepito is taking the good with the bad.
“We’ll really push ourselves more because it was unexpected for us to have this kind of record, especially after the not-so-good start we had in the first game. But things have gotten better in the past few games,” said Pepito in Filipino. “The first round was a good gauge of how far we’ve come and what we can do.”
HIGHLIGHTS: UAAP Season 87 volleyball – Adamson vs UP, NU vs UST
The Tigresses pushed the Lady Bulldogs to their limits, even taking a 2-1 lead before losing steam in the last two sets and falling to the defending champion, 25-23, 17-25, 25-19, 18-25, 9-15, on Sunday in front of 12,790 fans at Smart Araneta Coliseum.
Pepito, who had 24 digs, acknowledged that they may be one of the best digging teams in the league but they need to improve their reception after NU’s tactical serves — that led to eight aces — paved the way to the latter’s comeback.
“The good thing is, that’s where we’re strong too—digging. But I think our receiving really dropped, and that’s something we’re working on. We’re happy, though, because little by little, we’re getting back the strength we had last season,” said Pepito.
“Maybe in terms of skills, it’s our receiving. It really dropped [compared to last year] and it’s very challenging because teams are becoming more tactical and avoiding me. We’ll push the team more. Before, it was just the liberos doing extra [work], but now, all the passers and players are going above and beyond. We also need to find the perfect match with [Angge] Poyos’s diagonal, which we haven’t quite figured out yet.”
Short rotation
UST Golden Tigresses’ Cassie Carballo, Angge Poyos and Pia Abbu during a UAAP Season 87 women’s volleyball game against NU Lady Bulldogs. –MARLO CUETO/INQUIRER.net
UST assistant coach Yani Fernandez, speaking for KungFu Reyes, said their other players also need to step up as they had to dig deep from the bench, looking for a surprise factor and give ample time for their other starters to rest.
“Lesson learned. We need to check our rotation and strategy in our future practices. The challenge is that the opponents are also studying us, and we’re tired, too. Our bench players really need to step up so we can surprise them with someone new,” said Fernandez in Filipino.
READ: UAAP: UST got its grit back, says Pepito after repeat vs La Sale
“Hopefully, we can have a healthier bench, and our rotation will probably go from eight to nine players. We need to widen our substitution options more.”
Fernandez added that they couldn’t afford to play this kind of game again as they only scored four points from Reg Jurado in the fifth set and got two block errors, two attack errors, and one service error from NU.
“For us, the first and third sets were good. Those were really what we practiced and studied. In the fifth set, we told them that we couldn’t let that happen in our future matches,” he said.
Despite seeing their five-game winning streak snapped by NU, Pepito said the team still gained confidence in the first round as her teammates stepped up in the absence of Jonna Perdido and Xyza Gula, who suffered major injuries in the preseason.
READ: UAAP: UST still determined to make a deep run despite key losses
“This round really gave our team the confidence to realize that we can still do it, even without some key players. We just need to work hard because our opponents are working hard, too. We need to double our efforts because they’re almost complete,” Pepito said.
“We’ve had a lot of players missing, and there are still things we need to polish, but look at the results—we even went to a fifth set against the reigning champions. It’s all about hard work and the eagerness to win.”
UST has a busy week ahead facing Adamson on Wednesday at FilOil EcoOil Centre before a second round showdown against NU on Saturday next week at Mall of Asia Arena.
