2 shades of Blue: ADMU vs. NU, Who will win?

All right. I know we are all dying to watch our favorite girls battle it out on December 1 in the very much awaited UAAP 76 Volleyball opening.

The AdU vs. DLSU game will be interesting of course but we already saw them play against each other in the Unigames. Unless Pineda and the other tough Lady Falcons will bring out something new, Maraño and the fierce Lady Spikers already have it in the bag.

The more exciting game of course is the ADMU vs. NU game. And I’m not just saying that because I’m an ADMU fan.

Reasons?

First, both teams have suffered some key losses. Ateneo lost the famed Fab 5 while NU lost Nepomuceno (who wasn’t really much of a big scorer but was the team’s "ate" and very reliable clutch player) and of course, the outstanding and almost legendary libero, Jen Reyes.

Secondly, the teams also have some important additions. Of course, NU has the popular sister of their team captain Dindin and the tallest girl in the league, Jaja Santiago. On the other hand, Ateneo has acquired several promising rookies like Ana Gopico who has been coughing out Valdez-like points in some of their tune-up games; Julia Morado who is actually a tall setter (5’7”); and Kim Gequillana who, fans say, plays like Gervacio.

Third, they are both very mysterious. Many people including me expected a DLSU-NU finals showdown in the Unigames in Bacolod. But lo and behold, we saw DLSU settling for 3^rd place and NU nowhere in the top 4. I saw a few video of the matches and found NU’s floor defense very scrappy. Yeah, yeah many blame it on the setter Ivy Perez but I think a developing setter will be able to perform better if she was given good second balls. Obviously, even their  four incredible attackers (Dindin, Jaja, Pablo and Aiko) weren’t able to deliver well because of bad floor defense that worsened Ivy’s setting.

ADMU on the other hand didn’t join Unigames so aside from tiny bits of fan videos of their training, not a lot of people have seen them play. Ergo, very few people know how good they are now. True, ADMU lost to NU in the V-league first conference but at that time, NU had veteran setter Rubie de Leon and prolific libero Jen Reyes.

OK. Let’s try to make some wild predictions of who will play better.

Middles: Ateneo's Ana Gopico (5'10) and Mae Tajima (6'2) vs NU's Dindin Santiago (6'2) and Jaja Santiago (6'5). No question. The Santiagos will prevail. Gopico, they say, is very talented but the Santiagos, especially Dindin, will eat her alive. Tajima hopefully will factor in. Hopefully.

Open Hitters: Ateneo's Alyssa Valdez and Kim Gequillana vs NU's Myla Pablo and Carmina Aganon. Another no brainer. Even without the rumored foot injury, Pablo will still not beat Valdez. Nuff said. As for Gequillana vs. Aganon, I think Mina will perform better. She has shown some great talent in the V-league as replacement for Nepomuceno. Her experience with crowds will be a plus.

Setters: Ateneo's Julia Morado (5'7) vs NU's Ivy Perez (5'9). Tall setters here. Nice. But who will play better? Considering experience and playing time with the team, my money is on Ivy Perez. For now. Morado seems to have real talent but we haven’t seen her play under huge pressure or in front of a huge booing crowd.

Liberos: Ateneo's Denden Lazaro vs NU's Fatima General. Lazaro FTW! Despite having some rumored “difficulties” with boyfriend Myco Antonio, I think the prettiest libero in UAAP will fare better than NU’s General. Based on the Unigames videos, she is no Jen Reyes. Yet.

Utility players: Ateneo's Kiwi Ahomiro vs NU's Aiko Urdas. Although Aiko Urdas was ROY last season and was great in the V-League, she didn’t really have much effect in the Unigames. Meanwhile, Ahomiro might not have been exposed much last year (because Gervacio was too good to be subbed), but she played really high quality minutes. Experience and past games considered, this one goes to Urdas for now.

Coach: No. I’m not even going to comment about the coaches. LOL. But I’m really excited to see how ADMU’s Thai coach will be on the court. Mabbayad of course already has a championship under his belt when he coached the Lady Bulldogs to V-League championship earlier this year.

In conclusion, I’m clueless as to who will win. Individual player comparison seems to be a little bit on the NU side. But UAAP is not just about that. The crowd, the pressure, the nerves. These 3 factors have led to many unexpected game results in the past years. And after that FEU win over DLSU in the Unigames, I think it has become even more difficult to predict game results for the UAAP volleyball matches this year. At least for the 1^st round.

Comments?

P.S.

I hate scalpers. I hate seeing empty seats in the arena, seats that most probably have been bought by scalpers who are still looking for unlucky fans who are willing to buy them for ridiculous prices. Why don’t the organizers just sell 1 ticket per person on game day? Just before the audience will enter the arena. And to avoid long lines of angry fans, they can set up what, 5 or more ticket booths.  It will ensure that 1 sold ticket = 1 audience member. No more empty seats, no more overpriced tickets, and there’ll be more people watching live.

The Jerie Pingoy Rule: A Delayed Reaction

Okay so I haven’t written anything for a long time. Time to flex my writing muscles before they atrophy.  I was trolling on twitter when I chanced upon this tweet by Alyssa Valdez to fellow Atenean athlete Jerie Pingoy: “Good luck sa upcoming games mo. Mabilis lang yung one year. :) #patience”. A sweet message from one victim to another. Except that the latter will have to suffer longer. It’s 2 years residency for Jerie Pingoy.

Unless you’ve been hibernating under a rock, the Jerie Pingoy rule is a regulation that the UAAP board started implementing this school year which enforces 2 years of residency for any UAAP high school graduate transferring to another UAAP school for college. Outrageous, right?

The purpose? To discourage so-called “piracy” of homegrown high school talents. Now that might seem like a good idea since we’ve seen how some teams have suffered from losing their key players due to better “offers” from other schools. Imagine UST with Alyssa Valdez (ADMU), Dindin Santiago(NU) and Kim Fajardo(DLSU). They would give DLSU a run for their money right? Not gonna happen now.

And yeah, to make the two-year residency sound less evil, they also say that the goal is to give these student-athletes enough time for acclimatization. Don’t let that fancy word fool you. It just means adaptation or adjustment.

Okay. Enough of the good. Let’s start talking about the bad side of this rule.

First, when you drastically limit the freedom of a student-athlete to choose which academic institution will fit him best, you are basically defeating the student first, athlete second idea. Go figure.

Second, when a regular 12 year-old kid enrolls in his high school of choice, he should just be considering the next 4 years of his life.  But when you are a UAAP high school athlete, you have practically signed a contract for the rest of your academic life. Now this is outrageous especially because I’m sure that when I was a freshman in high school, I had no idea where to go for college. So if you or your son/daughter wants to have freedom to choose whichever college you like without unnecessary restrictions, don’t enroll in a UAAP high school.

Third, this “investment” made by the school on their high school players should not be a loan that they can ask the student to pay for the rest of his/her academic life.  These kids already played for their schools for their entire high school lives. Isn’t that enough compensation?

Fourth, who needs two years of acclimatization anyway? You can essentially get a freaking diploma in 2 years already! These student athletes are not retards. Many of them are actually smart and are good students. They don’t need two long years to adapt to their new school. I remember being bored with my campus after just a semester.  Seriously? 2 years?

Fifth, this actually makes it so unfair for ADMU which has no high school for girls. Where will they get their next Fab 5? See, this UAAP rule serves only a few member universities.

Sixth, this limits students’ choices even those who are already in their 3^rd year. Imagine if ADMU for some reason decides that Alyssa is not fit to play anymore due to grades. She still has 3 playing years in UAAP. If she decides to transfer to another school in order to keep playing, she can’t play for another two years. This rule is sick!

Lastly, I don’t want to compare these athletes to animals but this is actually a good point. If we want to keep our pets from wandering to other people’s backyards, we have to treat them well and make sure we offer them the best. Either that or we can just build a fence. This is what some universities are doing. Instead of improving their academic and sports programs to retain their athletes, they find it easier to come up with rules to box these athletes in.

Okay, I’m sure you didn’t really need to read these arguments to believe that the 2-year residency rule is stupid and outrageous and serves only the universities. I can come up with many more justifications why this rule should be trashed but the fact is, it is already being implemented.

Let me quote Edmund Burke, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” So many athletes, fans and even Senator Pia Cayetano have aired their abhorrence to this rule but nothing happened.

Why? The victims are too few, in fact even too insignificant for politicians to take seriously. How many heavily-recruited graduating UAAP high school basketball/volleyball players who want to transfer schools are there? How can they affect the voting public’s opinion? Exactly.

Imagine if someone so popular and/or important as Baby James/Bimby grows up to be a good basketball player, graduates from say  Ateneo High School and somehow wants to continue his studies in UP and faces this horrendous rule. This rule will be history in no time.

But, that is not the case for now. No matter how unfair, unnecessary and basically stupid this rule is, it will continue to oppress unfortunate high school athletes who just want to study and play their favorite sport at the same time. And we can only sit and watch them suffer. Or should we?

Hail to the Queens of UAAP 76!

This list is essentially based on who are the most important players in their own squads. The queens of their own kingdoms. These are the players whose absence might spell tragedy to their teams. These are the players whose name comes up first when someone mentions their team. So are you ready to meet the Queens of the UAAP 76 Volleyball teams? So bow or curtsy if you must, here we go:

Queen Spiker Abigail Maraño

Her fierceness and very strong leadership has helped her squad survive the several teams that challenged them in Season 75. UAAP 75 Best Blocker and Season Co-MVP plus UAAP 74 Season MVP. Need I say more? Her team of intimidating volleybelles like Galang and Reyes are still a shoo-in for the Finals. However, I don't think it will be as smooth as the past seasons. I guess they are working hard on their speed and blocking since they are clearly not the tallest team anymore.

Queen Bulldog Dindin Santiago

She carried her team to an amazing Final 4 entry in UAAP 75 and their first V-League championship with her very powerful and scary attacks. She was crowned as Best Scorer and Season MVP in the SVL 10. This girl made all the difference to the NU squad. I honestly think that with her leadership (and with the formidable trio of Jaja, Myla and Aiko), NU might be able to growl their way to the UAAP Finals in 76.

Queen Eagle Alyssa Valdez

UAAP 75 Best Scorer, SVL 10 Best Server, Finals MVP in SVL 9, and arguably the best open spiker in the country today, this girl is the obvious Queen in the Lady Eagle nest. But will she be able to carry the team on her wings to get a spot in the Finals again? Not easy to say. She will need excellent performance from Ahomiro, Patnongon and recruits like Gopico and Gequillana to do that. In fact, based on their V-league games, even with Alyssa on fire, the Ateneo girls will find it hard to defeat the Bulldogs. Remember, they lost to Dindin's squad even with Daquis, Bualee, Ferrer and Cainglet playing with them. 

Queen Falcon Shiela Pineda

She might be the shortest among the list of queens but she’s certainly equally powerful and important. With Pau Soriano leaving the Falcon’s nest, the UAAP 75 Best Server will be their most reliable scorer. She’ll also be playing in her final year this UAAP 76 so expect her to go all out! Together with Zapanta, Guevarra and key rookie Paat, they will be battling it out with UST to get a spot again in the Final Four.

UST Tiger Princesses

Forgive me but I really can’t choose one between Jessey De Leon, Carmela Tunay and Pam Lastimosa to be the next Queen Tiger. I still think Aiza Maizo hasn’t really transferred the crown to anyone yet. :D De Leon’s excellent blocking and timely quicks are vital in this team’s campaign. But so are the powerful hits of Lastimosa and Tunay. Lastimosa was even awarded as the Most Improved Player in V-League 10. And no, I’m not forgetting Maruja Banaticla. I hope with all my heart that she’ll play her best season this UAAP 76 since it’s her last. UST's non-entry to the Final Four last year must have really fired up this team. I'm sure they'll be doing everything they can to gain back their glory.

As for the other teams, I really don’t have a clear idea who their queens are yet  mainly because most of them are rebuilding. UP’s Bersola sure looks poised to be the next Queen Fighting Maroon and UE’s Dawis still seems to be the Queen Warrior. As for FEU, as of now, I believe Gyselle Sy is their best bet for Queen.

Do you have other worthy queens in mind? Share them in the comment section! :D

(all photos were grabbed from the web.)

Time to Build the National Men's Volleyball Team!

The Philippine entry to the 2013 FIVB World Championship qualifiers had a so-so performance which is still hard to accept. We know how talented and passionate our girls are. Again, it's not their fault. With the proper training and support, (think of Pacquaio’s extravagant team and special trips to special venues to have special trainings) our girls can be a worthy opponent for Thailand in the SEA Games.

So knowing that there are now some groups pushing for the formation of the Philippine Women’s Volleyball Team, I think it’s also time to start building the MEN’s team!

While watching the men’s finals yesterday, I realized I was watching some of the best male volleyball players in the country. Of course, the present NU men’s volleyball team was there but there were also some veterans from other teams. The veterans actually played really well considering that they're not really well-conditioned for the game. Some of them like Chris Macasaet was grimacing while being strecthed saying "I haven't done this in two years!". While watching the exchange of awesome spikes and nasty staredowns (I actually loved this part. The younger NU boys did not get intimidated by the likes of Macasaet, De la Vega and Lee who were showing classic LaSallian court attitude), it suddenly occurred to me, wait. We don't have a men's volleyball team yet, right? Whoa.

Not having a national men's volleyball team would be a HUGE waste of talent and an actual insult to these talented men who, I believe, if asked to play for the country would drop whatever they're doing and say yes!

So if the gods and goddesses of Philippine sports will form a National Men's Volleyball Team, here's my list of well-qualified players (in random order):

Ateneo’s AJ Pareja  Best Attacker and Season’s MVP UAAP 72

DLSU’s Chris Macasaet Best Scorer UAAP 72, Best Blocker UAAP 70

UST’s JP Torres  Best Scorer,  Best Attacker and Season’s MVP UAAP 73

FEU’s JR Labrador Best Scorer and Finals MVP UAAP 74

FEU’s Pitrus Paolo De Ocampo Seasons 73-74 Best Setter

NU’s Peter Torres  ROY UAAP 73, Best Attacker UAAP 74, Best Attacker and Finals MVP UAAP  75

NU’s Vince Mangulabnan ROY UAAP 74, Best Setter UAAP 75

UST’s Mark Gil Alfafara Season MVP and Best Blocker UAAP 75

Great subs: FEU's Arvin Avila, DLSU-Dasma's Ran-Ran Abdilla, NU’s Reyson Fuentes and Berlin Paglinawan, DLSU’s Red Christensen and AdU’s Ronjay Galang.

Did I miss any great player? Who's on your list?

(all photos were taken from the web. :D)

A Day of Volleyball Goodness at the Ateneo Open

So yesterday, I was at the Ateneo Blue Eagle Gym to watch the semifinal and championship games of the Ateneo Open 2013. Frankly, I didn’t know what to expect since the only places where I’ve watched volleyball in are San Juan Arena, MOA Arena, Araneta and Ultra.

I was quite clear with my intentions that day: to see the Fab 5 play once again and check out if the buzz about UPWVT’s development is true. Another reason was, I wanted to have my weekly dose of volleyball (you should too. It's good for the health. :D)

Well for one, I did see four of the fab five play. Only Dzi Gervacio did not participate in the games. It was such a joy to see former Lady eagles like Bello and Soriano play again alongside Cainglet, Ho and Nacachi (Ferrer played for HOPE).

And yes, I was quite impressed with the new UP Lady Maroons. Bersola looked cute in person but I was really surprised with how pretty Se really is. That short hair is perfect for her face. Oh, as for their “development”, I was more of relieved than surprised. After watching their “bleh” performance in Season 75, I was already expecting this squad to train really hard and become better. With a new coach, Jerry Yee from Hope, I had all reasons to expect a lot of changes in the girls’ play.

Bersola is now much more confident and powerful and so was Se. There were still a lot of mishits and errors but they were able to show some great floor defense. I was observing Coach Yee the whole time and he is very much different from UP’s former coach, Jarold Hubalde. Hubalde seemed really cool and gentle, similar to AdU’s Coach Meneses while Yee is more loud and stern like Coach Gorayeb.

Speaking of Coach Sherwin Meneses of the Adamson Lady falcons, I was able to have a short chat with him (he played with some FEU players). I asked him about who will be their graduating players next year and he answered, Zapanta and Pineda. Wow. Adamson’s main attackers will no longer play in UAAP 77. I also asked him about Mylene Paat’s role in the team. He said he’s still unsure if Paat will play as middle or utility. Too early to say, he shared.

Spotted in the Eagle’s Nest were DLSU’s Abi Maraño and Jaja and Dindin’s sister Diane Santiago who both looked charming in shorts. Also seen were former UAAP men’s volleyball stars AJ Pareja, Mark Lee, Chris Macasaet and many others.

I was also amused by observing the crowd. Wow! Volleyball must have the widest variety of fans. I saw families, young boys and girls, high school and college students, and straight and gay men and women of all ages.

And finally, I think it’s worth noting how nice and friendly the volleyball players were. I wasn’t wearing a PRESS ID or anything imposing for that matter, but I was able to talk to so many players and ask a thing or two. They all responded very nicely from Cainglet and Ho to Maraño and Torres. No snobs there! Even Chris Macasaet and Mark Lee who looked very serious and intimidating that day were actually very accommodating and friendly.

I'd say the 40 pesos I paid as entrance fee was the best 40 pesos I've ever spent. During regular games such as in Araneta, I couldn't have gotten that close to these amazing players. Looking forward to Ateneo Open 2014!

These Girls are Titanium!

So I know many of us are still brokenhearted because of what happened last night (hindi pala masarap na midnights snack ang ampalaya). But well, if there was one thing that Filipinos are well-known for aside from being Pacquaio country, it is our RESILIENCE.

Yup, according to Merriam-webster.com, it’s the ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change. And boy do we know how to bounce back.  An average of 20 typhoons hit our country every single year. We should be fleeing to another country right? Not gonna happen.   

I won’t try to sugarcoat it though. Last night, we lost. And we lost really bad. The score 25-9, 25-11 and 25-18 pretty much sounds like a DLSU-UE game in the UAAP (sorry UE, consider this a challenge :D). The Vietnamese whipped our 12 heroes like hell. But should we lose faith and ask them to just come back home and forget what happened? No way.

In last night’s game, Valdez scored 9, Jaja 6, Dindin 5, Yongco 2, and 1 each for Roces, Ortiz, Dimaculangan and Pablo. Unbelievable right? What happened? (Actually, very few people know since there was no livestreaming available last night. Bleh.) I honestly have no idea too. But according to reports and tweets, the Vietnamese were just too quick and powerful for our girls.

So just like what I always do after a failure, I try to think about what I did wrong and what I could do better. Oops, I don’t mean to say the girls failed. They absolutely did not. But here are some things that may have contributed to their loss.

1.      First is insufficient preparation. I know who to blame but I won’t even waste time talking about him. The girls barely had a week to prepare. And second, just like what Coach Roger said, they weren't able to scout the opponent.

But then there are the more important differences. For one, Vietnam has a really successful volleyball program. They also have a professional league. They have lots of experiences in international competitions and they did have homecourt advantage. You see, their players are authentic “volleyball players”. Volleyball is their job. They play volleyball all-year round.

Our players on the other hand only play volleyball after classes, or when there is a chance to play as a guest player in a short conference. We haven’t joined any international competition for years. Again, I find it hard to accept this. It’s not like we’re the poorest country on earth!

Okay, I guess if we try to look for the positive side of things, maybe we can say that our girls and the team learned something from last night’s game. Perhaps they realized that they still have a lot to learn and still have a lot to improve on. Perhaps they also realized that since they are much taller than the other team, they can actually beat them when they meet again if given sufficient time and training.

Guys, we have won 6 gold medals in women’s volleyball in the SEA Games. Vietnam has zero. ZERO! That alone should be reason enough to believe that we can do so much better. 

However, our last gold medal was from 1997. From 2001 to 2005 we fell for the Bronze then from 2007 to 2011 we got nothing. Vietnam on the other hand has been consistently getting silver from 2001 to 2011 always being second to Thailand.  

This is definitely a wake-up call. Not to our players but to the Philippine Sports Commission or whoever it is responsible for the sport in our country. We have talented and very willing players. Please support them, give them world-class training and international exposure.

As for us fans, all we can do is shrug off what happened and keep on showing the girls our love and support. Remember, if Cinderella started as a rich princess, her story would not be as interesting. We're still in the beginning guys, and it can only get better! #OneForTheCountry!

(as for the title, "You shoot me down, but I won't fall, I am Titanium.. gets na? :D)

10 Signs That You Are a Fantard

Recently, there's been a rise in the number of volleyball fans and it has made me so thrilled and thankful. This sport is still hugely underrated. But with the rise of good, evil has also followed suit (Dramatic, eh? LOL). I'm talking about the terrifying and  inevitable, rise of the FANTARDS.

According to urbandictionary.com, a fantard is a “person who obsesses over a series (TV,book, movie etc) and acts annoyingly like it’s the best thing ever made. Most fantards for movies never read the book and 99% of fantards are motivated by blind loyalty or a sad need to be popular or accepted. Fantards are also known to be really rude to people who go against their precious fandom and don't practice literary or any type of preference tolerance.”

I would also like to share my definition of a fantard but that would be boring so I decided to make a list of signs that might suggest that you have already become.. a FANTARD!

1. You think your Idol is perfect, faultless, and god-like. Ultimately, everyone who says anything that is not consistent with this perfect image of your idol, is pure evil and therefore deserves immediate death. Well, last time I checked, only God is perfect. And maybe the wintermelon milk tea from Gong Cha. :D

2. You react rudely and immaturely to people who say the slightest negative thing about your idol. You are very comfortable with the use profanities and foul language in online discussions. Mahihiya ang bungangerang palengkera sa  choice of words mo. 

3. You don’t believe in constructive criticism. You believe that the world is out to destroy your idol. So any negative comment, no matter how constructive it may be, is a sign of war.

4. You don’t care about facts or reason. You think you have the highest understanding of everything in the world and anyone who has an opinion different from yours is downright stupid.

5. You’re mind is closed, shut, locked, impermeable. No explanation needed. In fact, no explanation can pass through the nasty covering you have placed all over your brain.

6. Everyone who says anything non-positive about your idol is AUTOMATICALLY an evil HATER. Agad-agad.

7. You think you’re normal but you consider the fans of other teams as FANTARDS. Anything and everything they say is irritating.

8. You believe that you are entitled to know everything and anything about your idol. You feel like you have the right to know where she is, what she’s doing, why she's doing it, who she's doing it with and how she's doing it, ALL THE TIME.

9. You are very judgmental. You react very fast and make conclusions without much contemplation. In short, you’re brain is on vacation. Not much work going in there. You’re like a pitbull always ready to attack someone without any deliberation.

10. You boo players of the other team without any good reason. You criticize and bully players of other team just because they are not on your side. Yung totoo, ano'ng kasalanan nina Myla Pablo, Dadang at Perez sa'yo?

Frankly, I’m okay with fantards. Well, they are quite annoying and I really don’t understand them sometimes but hey, at least they appreciate the sport too. I don’t believe we can force people to fit into our definitions of right and wrong. The goal is to coexist peacefully, and hopefully, happily too.

I guess what I’m saying is that the world is not perfect. If we want the rainbow, we have to put up with the rain. So the next time you spot fantards, just try to ignore them. You can’t beat them even with the most intelligent arguments. You can only defeat  them with your indifference.