Raagas, like her new team, refuses to be counted out
Therre was a moment in the fourth set when Galeries Tower held a 20-18 lead that was under assault from Nxled.
The Highrisers saw their six-point cushion disappear into a deadlock and built a little buffer for breather, but the Chameleons looked poised to force the game into a decider. At that moment, Brooke Van Sickle rose for a kill that so many times in the past was a giveaway point.
Except somehow, Dolly Veroza managed to dig the shot and sent the ball straight past the baseline. Maj Malungabnan and Erika Raagas made a spirited chase, with Mangulabnan, the setter out of University of Santo Tomas, keeping the ball in play.
That furious sequence ended up with an emphatic kill-block by Roselle Baliton.
Almost out of frame, Mangulabnan and Raagas released guttural screams.
“The coaches just keep on telling us to continue the hustle, don’t stop,” said Raagas, who had the closest view of Mangulabnan’s save. “Our movement should be continuous. We should support each other in everything we do.
“Mostly, we remind each other not to stop. If the ball is still in play, it doesn’t die. If the referee doesn’t whistle, the game will continue.”
Moments later, it was Raagas who went for the kill, scoring th final point of a 25-19, 17-25, 25-20, 25-21 upset by the Highrisers that stopped the Chameleons’ three-game winning streak to open the PVL All-Filipino Conference.
Sparks
It was a welcome victory for the Highrisers, but it was also a big win for Raagas, the outside hitter from Cagayan de Oro City who saw limited action playing behind a bumper crop of talented teammates at Akari.
Now with the Highrisers, Raagas has seen her court time go up—and her game went along for the ride.
And she couldn’t be happier.
“It’s exciting, very refreshing to be part of this new team. Good energy, good environment, and we’re all adapting to the system slowly, each game, each training session,” said the 25-year-old former Ateneo star. “So, I hope that in the next incoming games, we’ll be able to show what we’ve been working on.”
Raagas feels that the team’s performance, particularly the final stretches of the fourth set, had a lot to do with how hard the Highrisers have been training for the tournament.
“It felt like all the training sessions that we’ve had finally translated in the game,” she said.
“For the past two games, it felt like sparks were coming out of our training sessions,” Raagas said. “I hope that this momentum builds up into something better.”
Someone chimed in, “Like fire?” Raagas smiled.
Right now, she is focused on staying prepared: “My mindset is to contribute in whatever way I can.”
And perhaps, she can fulfill her goal of helping Galeries become a team no one overlooks anymore.
“When you’re an underdog, sometimes, I’m not saying all the time, they count you out,” she said, adding that wins like the one against Nxled are “a statement for us.”
“Don’t count us out,” Raagas said.
Don’t count her out, especially.
“This is what you’ve been playing for,” she tells herself regularly. “You’ve been training yourself for years now.
“For the longest time, I’ve been telling myself, you didn’t come this far to end up only this far. You have so much more to show. Hopefully, in this new team, I’ll be able to show that and contribute more to our team.”
