PH men’s volleyball team vows to give it all in SEA Games

Photo by Bong Lozada

Men’s volleyball national team skipper John Vic De Guzman said Thursday the squad he’ll be leading in the 2017 Southeast Asian Games will be a different one from the 2015 team that failed to bring home a medal.

“I can’t say where we are right now but we made sure that this team will be a different one from the 2015 one,” said De Guzman in Filipino in the athletes send-off for the SEA Games last Thursday.

“What I can say is this SEA Games will be more exciting.”

The men’s national volleyball team traveled to Korea for its training camp where the team would train for almost 16 hours with meals serving as the only rest for them.

And even though De Guzman and his peers went through rigorous activities during their two-week stay in Korea, the captain did not make any concrete promises.

“I am not saying that we’re confident we’ll bring home the gold, but what I can say is we’ll do our best, we’ll play to our extent and we’ll take it to heart everything we’ve been through in Korea,” said De Guzman.

And one thing the team will definitely remember once they start playing in Malaysia is the injury to hitter Greg Dolor who suffered a broken pinky finger.

De Guzman said the injury to one of their offensive weapons deeply hurt the team skills-wise, but it also bolstered the group in the attitude department.

“That hurt but we all know now that we’re far more motivated going into the SEA Games and we’re braver now because we’ll be offering our games to Greg.”