Farm Fresh slowly unlocking new-look chemistry
For whatever reason, Japanese coach Koji Tsuzurabara felt he needed a little introduction.
“I’m the coach of Farm Fresh. Nice to meet you, everyone,” Tsuzurabara said before the start of the postgame press conference. “Some people don’t know about me. I am [the] new coach of Farm Fresh.”
Maybe because the Foxies did a little reintroduction of their own.
With new faces and a continental shift in game philosophy, Farm Fresh finally crashed the win column, hammering out a hurried 25-14, 25-15, 25-12 victory over Galeries Tower in the PVL All-Filipino Conference on Saturday.
Difficult transition
For a team that defied expectations and came close to competing for a title in the previous conference, the Foxies encountered a few problems to start their 2026 campaign, dropping their first two games.
“Those two games, we performed well,” said top hitter Trisha Tubu, who had 17 points at the Ynares Center to fuel the Farm Fresh attack. “It’s just that the team is new, the system is new and we have new players.”
Farm Fresh added the likes of Mylene Paat, Royse Tubino and Ara Galang in the offseason, along with Imee Hernandez, Bia General and playing assistant coach Remy Palma, whose history with Tsuzurabara during their title run at Petro Gazz has been key to helping the players settle into the new system.
“It was difficult to transition from European style to Asian style. But volleyball is volleyball. We just needed to trust coach’s system,” Tubu said.
Jolina dela Cruz added that while the team needed to make its transition from Italian coach Alessandro Lodi’s system to Tsuzurabara’s style, the rough patch the Foxies hit is something they needed.
“I think we needed to go through that to become stronger. We can’t build chemistry in an instant,” the former La Salle standout said.
Bigger wins
On Saturday, the team showed flashes of what that newfound chemistry can produce, finishing off the Highrisers in 69 minutes, like they had something better to do on Valentine’s Day.
“We fixed what we needed to fix in the last two games—our blocking, our passing and especially our communication. And also our endgame. We prepared well for Galeries,” Tubu said.
“Now that we got that [winning] feeling, the goal is to win more games,” she added.
Tsuzurabara thinks Saturday’s win will also set Farm Fresh up for bigger wins.
“Today is just one game,” he said. “But I have [an] idea for the next game.”
