Valdez’ full focus now on national team

Photo by Tristan Tamayo/INQUIRER.net

With her obligations with Creamline in the 2017 Premier Volleyball League Reinforced Conference women’s division now over, Conference Most Valuable Player Alyssa Valdez’ attention is now fully with the Philippine national women’s volleyball team.

“After this, we’ll be focused in the national team because it’s just two months away,” she said.

Valdez is hoping that coach Francis Vicente will make room for her in the lineup, which will be announced on Wednesday, as the country gears up for the 2017 Southeast Asian Games in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in August.

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The Creamline hitter, whose status with the national volleybelles is still up in the air, said that the Philippines will have its hands full in the regional tiff against favored foes led by Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam.

“We’ll be facing different teams in the SEA Games. The only difference is that we stopped training (after 2015), but the other teams didn’t. Still, we’re hopeful that we’ll perform well this SEA Games,” she said.

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Though Valdez acknowledges the tall task at hand, she is optimistic that the team can surpass the fifth-place finish the Philippines had in the 2015 tilt and build on the campaign moving forward.

“I hope everyone can support the national team and we’re hoping that our journey with the national team will be good. As they say, this is just the beginning. We’ll just have to continue this program for Philippine volleyball,” she said.