“Nothing to be ashamed of kasi we gave them a good fight. Everybody contributed and nabigay naman namin yung best namin,” Rachel Ann Daquis of the Philippine Army Lady Troopers declared after they were denied in defending her team’s Shakey’s V-League Open Conference crown.
Just two points shy from sealing a back-to-back feat, the Philippine Army Lady Troopers crumbled in the last two sets against crowd favorites PLDT Home Ultra Fast Hitters Sunday afternoon at the Filoil Flying V Arena in San Juan City.
In the last game of the tournament, the former FEU Lady Tamaraw broke out from a scoring slump in the series by scoring 11 points. It was a point more than her combined output in the last two games doubled. She registered a single point in Army’s series-opening win and slightly improved it to four in Game Two. After the loss, Daquis shared that the Lady Troopers are looking forward rather than back. “Wala kaming iisipin na pangit game namin kasi alam namin sa sarili namin na binigay namin yung best namin as a team,” she believes.
Even if her team fell short, Daquis thinks that the performance they displayed against perhaps an equally good team in PLDT made the game exciting until the end. “Kapag napanood mo naman yung game, hindi mo talaga alam kung sino talaga mananalo,” she elaborated.
Playing as the underdogs in the finals, Army handed the Ultra Fast Hitters their first loss of the competition in the opening game of the series to inch closer towards securing their title defense. Responding well after the defeat, PLDT earned a title-deciding third match, in which they won by the slightest of margins.
Instead of sulking from this season’s championship defeat, Daquis told Tiebreaker Times that the team will look to strengthen themselves in order to do better next time around. “Mag-double time pa kami para ma-reach namin yung goal namin—makapagchampion kami ulit,” she closed out.
