The post-Alyssa Valdez journey of the Ateneo de Manila University Lady Eagles continued Saturday evening as the new-look team suffered another loss to Katipunan neighbors University of the Philippines Lady Maroons in the 2016 Shakey’s V-League Collegiate Conference quarterfinals.
Third-year middle hitter Bea De Leon was spectacular offensively for the Loyola spikers, amassing a season-high 15 points, all off attacks. Still, the Poveda alumna’s efforts were not enough to lift the Lady Eagles, who gave up 34 errors to UP’s 23.
“It’s a game: you win some, you lose some. I wouldn’t say it was tough. It depends on how you take it as a player,” De Leon told Tiebreaker Times after the game.
“As a team, we need to learn from this.”
Having been part of Ateneo’s Season 77 championship team, De Leon thinks Ateneo were missing a bit of everything, from offense to defense.
“We lacked a bit of everything, I think it was more on the details,” she remarked.
“I could’ve moved my blocks more, put my hands over the net, there could’ve been a few receives na mas maganda. It was really the little things that we lacked.”
Before the loss, the Lady Eagles had revived their SVL season, rallying from a horrid 0-2 start to take their next three matches, including a do-or-die match against the Technological Institute of the Philippines Lady Engineers.
From their debut match, when they coughed up 52 errors, to now, having adjusted their patterns and rotations, the Lady Eagles have shown incremental improvement.
Adjusting to their new lineup and building chemistry were the goals for the Lady Eagles in this tournament. Regardless of whether they win or not, the Lady Eagles have been happy with their performance as long as the team comes together.
“Since then naman, we don’t come into a game and say ‘kapag tayo natalo dito, wala na’. It’s not that we don’t want to win.
“Our mindset has always just been to do better and hopefully things go our way. But definitely we’re not to too keen on the result of the match. It’s always back to zero-zero for us,” the 19-year-old continued, adding that they don’t think back on past matches and just keep moving forward.
The biggest adjustment for the Lady Eagles has been filling the Phenom-sized hole left by three-time UAAP MVP Alyssa Valdez, who consistently provided the Lady Eagles with 20 points per game and on-court leadership.
“Definitely it’s tough sometimes because we used to rely on Ate Alyssa a lot especially kapag bakbakan inside the court. When it’s close, kahit ako napapaisip na kay Ate Alyssa na lang ibigay,” the Ateneo junior relayed.
De Leon, however, sees the former Queen Eagles’ loss as a chance for the Lady Eagles to be more offensively dynamic; to let the other members of the team shine.
“Ngayon, ‘di mo alam kung kanino ibibigay ni Jia (Morado).
“It’s tough in a sense that you’re forced to rely on yourself more kesa sa i-asa mo sa teammates mo. Not that you can’t trust them, but it’s about understanding how far our individual contributions go into our team’s development,” De Leon concluded.
At 1-2, the Lady Eagles will need to win their next matches to stand a chance of moving on to the semifinals. They face the 0-4 University of Santo Tomas Tigresses on Monday, 6:00 pm, at the PhilSports Arena.
