This time, Jude makes sure he won’t let Criss Cross down
Jude Garcia took a sad song and made it better.
It wasn’t easy, though.
Garcia, whose social media presence has been peppered with the popular Beatles hit “Hey Jude” either through hashtags or outright mentions, had gone through several frustrations with his Criss Cross teammates in the past.
They had been to three straight runner-up finishes—losing to Cignal each time—at Spikers’ Turf and faced a fifth set in the title game of the Invitational Conference despite taking a two-set lead against Kindai University of Japan.
“For me, what happened to us now is really connected to what we went through in the last three conferences,” Garcia told the Inquirer in Filipino. “For three straight conferences, we were always so close to winning the championship, but something was always missing.”
“So I used those past conferences as inspiration and motivation for this one.”
This one, Garcia did not let slip away.
The 27-year-old outside spiker decided to rewrite an ending or two and dropped 35 points, as Criss Cross forged a classic 25-15, 25-21, 23-25, 23-25, 22-20 victory in front of a good Saturday crowd at Filoil EcoOil Centre.
“I already told myself that we weren’t going to waste all the hard work we put in before the season, during the eliminations, and in the semis,” Garcia said. “By the time we reached the Finals, my mindset was simple: I don’t want to go home with silver again. We’re going home with gold. I wanted us to win so we could give back to our management, who never stopped supporting and believing in us.”
Already the most decorated individual at Spikers’ Turf, Garcia added to his collection with a fourth MVP trophy, which, together with the championship, pushes Garcia to be more than just the face of the league.
“Being called the face of Spikers’ Turf is a huge responsibility, but … I just focus on what I do, and I want to be a good role model for all the kids who want to play volleyball,” Garcia said.
“Coach Tai Bundit always tells us that everything we practice, everything we’ve trained for since our training camp in Thailand, was really hard. That’s why we can’t afford to be complacent with how we play, because everything we do on the court is something we prepared for,” he said. “And in the end, all our hard work paid off, and that’s how we won the championship.”
With the sweetest of his MVPs cradled in his arms and a championship finally for the King Crunchers, Garcia has a new song to his career playlist, Queen’s popular anthem of triumph, “We Are The Champions”.
There’s an Instagram reel of Rex Intal where Garcia, Jaron Requinton, Ish Polvorosa and Marck Espejo were singing the song, playfully changing the phrase “of the World” to “of the Spikers’ Turf.”
And it’s a video that proves Garcia no longer carries the world upon his shoulders.
He’s standing right on top of it.
