After a promising 2-1 start to the UAAP Season 80 Women’s Volleyball Tournament, the Adamson University Lady Falcons put up a disappointing result against a short-handed University of Santo Tomas Golden Tigresses.
The Lady Falcons looked lost right from the first set, and went through a gauntlet of challenges, to which they had no response.
Most notably, the Lady Falcons had no answer for UST’s high-leaping virtuoso Sisi Rondina, who tallied 22 points, while Adamson’s highest scorer, Jema Galanza, provided just 10.
Going into the match, Adamson head coach Air Padda said that UST could not rely on Rondina alone, and she would need her teammates to step up. Apparently, the Golden Tigresses caught wind of Padda’s comments and used it as their motivation.
“So I helped them, huh?,” Padda sighed and followed with a deflated giggle.
“I think that’s what you’re supposed to do when your teammate goes down.”
As for her Lady Falcons, the American tactician rued her squad’s response to playing under pressure.
“I think, mainly today, the girls were intimidated. This is probably the biggest crowd we’ve played in front of,” the second-year Adamson head coach shared. “We know that UST brings a lot of fans. We know that Cherry Rondina is one of the most popular players in the Philippines.
“We didn’t fight against her. They totally bowed down. They were scared on defense. We couldn’t stop her at the net. We made way too many errors and it just caused not to play like we normally do.
“I just feel like we gotta be consistent. Today was our worst serve receive passing game we’ve had. So, we know where the errors happen. I’m confident that we’ll bounce back. We hit a wall that showed our inconsistency,” she pointed out.
Taking on crowd darlings Ateneo de Manila University Lady Eagles on Wednesday at the FilOil Flying V Centre, Padda is eager to see how her girls will respond.
“The focus will be on Ateneo. We have a scouting report on them. We’ll be ready. They’re another strong team,” Padda shared.
“I feel like we can compete with the rest of the the league. It’s just a matter of being consistently confident.”
