For Akari, securing the silver medal in the 2024 Premier Volleyball League Reinforced Conference was already an overachievement.
A team that had never placed higher than seventh before, the Chargers stunned the competition by going a perfect 10-0 to reach the championship match.
However, experience triumphed over recency in the gold medal match.
Creamline captured its ninth title overall with a dominant 25-15, 25-23, 25-17 victory over Akari on Wednesday night at the jam-packed Philsports Arena.
Just making it to the podium was a significant accomplishment for the Chargers. As a result, the management decided to reward the team with a leisure-slash-training camp in Japan in preparation for the All-Filipino Conference.
Team manager Mozzy Ravena explained that the trip to Japan was originally planned for training purposes only, but with the silver medal, they decided to make it a reward as well.
“Actually, yung Japan trip was really for training. It started like that kay Coach Taka, tapos naisip namin na parang the girls naman deserve something, kaya inincorporate na lang din namin yung parang a little bit of reward, pasyal-pasyal ganyan,” said Ravena.
“Pero, knowing Coach Taka, alam mo yun, syempre very calculated lang din yung pasyal. It’s really more for tune-up games. May mga nakausap na siyang teams.”
Taka Minowa, the Japanese head coach of Akari, has already spoken to at least two teams for tune-up games with the Chargers and is expected to increase that number before they fly to Japan.
According to the team manager, they plan to fly to Japan by early October, just in time before the SV.League and V.League start.
“First or second week of October yan kasi mag-iistart na rin yung league sa Japan, so mawawalan na rin kami ng ka-tune-up. We have to be specific sa dates para maganda yung mga tune-up games namin,” shared Ravena.
“So far, alam ko dalawa na yung nakausap niya (Minowa) na ka-tune-up namin, pero siyempre he wants more, siguro four or five teams at the very least kasi sayang naman nandoon ka na eh.”
