Green means go
There is only one ending to the UAAP Season 88 women’s volleyball tournament that will be acceptable to La Salle.
Coming off a sweep of the elimination round to make the title series outright, a championship would be the only right reward for the effort of these intrepid Lady Spikers, even if the last time that they made the fight for the crown this way ended in total disaster.
“We don’t want a repeat of that nightmare, obviously,” coach Ramil de Jesus’ long-time assistant, Noel Orcullo, said in Filipino, referring to the debacle 12 years ago when La Salle had a thrice-to-beat advantage only to go down in flames against an upcoming phenom named Alyssa Valdez and the Ateneo Blue Eagles.
“We will work very hard for that not to happen again. We will keep our focus, our focus ever since this season started, and that is to win the championship,” Orcullo added as La Salle battles defending champion National University in Game 1 of a best-of-three on Wednesday at 5 p.m. at Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay.
Chasing history
The Lady Bulldogs are also chasing a big piece of league history—a three-peat—and validation within themselves that there is life after Bella Belen and Alyssa Solomon.
Their rookie coach, Regine Diego, is also looking to justify her place among the elite in the league, and prove to her former coach that he was prophetic when he told Diego sometime while she was still active that “you can become a coach in the future.”
“I just hope that I can out-discipline coach Ramil, who is all about discipline,” Diego said in Filipino as she will become the first woman to coach in a championship series since Adamson’s Dulce Pante finished second to—you guessed it—La Salle in 2005.
“I am very grateful to have been under him,” Diego continued. “This is going to be very difficult, because there is no such thing as an easy Finals.”
La Salle swept the 14-game elimination round, and National U’s only two losses came at the hands of the Lady Spikers, though the last one was so close that it could have gone either way.
The Bulldogs also got the tuneup they needed when they turned back University of Santo Tomas for the right to play La Salle on Wednesday, that game going four sets as La Salle’s waiting time got extended to almost two weeks.
Angel Canino, the Rookie-MVP when La Salle won its last championship in 2023, will be the central figure of the Lady Spikers’ game on both ends, even as De Jesus brandishes a support cast that has gotten so much better this season.
Vange Alinsug and Lams Lamina will be the main pieces of the National U game, with rookie Sam Cantada expected to contribute heavily to give the Bulldogs another offensive option.
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