It would’ve been the Adamson University Lady Falcons’ first win over the Ateneo de Manila University Lady Eagles since the second round of the UAAP Season 75 Women’s Volleyball Tournament.
But — and there was no other way to put it — they relaxed.
Complacency cost the Lady Falcons a 16-22 lead in the fourth set of their second round showdown against the Lady Eagles. Complacency ended up allowing the perennial finalists to clinch the match in five sets.
Second year head coach Airess Padda was left to rue Adamson’s blown chances. A win would have given the Lady Falcons wiggle room in a heated chase for a Final Four slot. Instead, Adamson are now in must-win mode for their last three games.
“Sayang! Honestly we should’ve taken care of them in the fourth.
“The fourth set was our set. I guess the curse of Adamson is that we don’t have a winning culture and when you’re trying to create a winning culture our team just get to excited, they get too complacent and they feel like they’re already gonna win the game. And we blow leads,” sighed the American mentor.
“I felt like the environment that we played here today was really difficult, it was hard. They admitted it in there that the crowd rattled them. They were unfocused. They just felt like they were doing things that they normally wouldn’t do. The amount of times that our hitters were flying into the net, it was crazy to me and we let Ateneo come back and win,” the second-year Adamson head coach added.
While there were several controversial calls that led to their demise in the fourth set, Padda knew better than to show frustration to her team. Complaining to the referees, she knew, would not have a positive effect.
“There were a few calls that were iffy but I don’t know, I learned my lesson with my team. We talk about emotions, I try to teach them how important emotions are and how important controlling your emotion is whether in an over the top emotion that is great and full of energy or an emotion that is depressing and sad and angry,” said Padda.
“Emotions affect you and I know whenever I fight with the refs it always affect my team in a negative way. They’re not a team that sees that as me trying to go to back for them. They’re a team that gets really affected and shocked and thrown off guard. We just end up digging ourselves a hole so I made it a point to not try to fight with the ref. But I was surprised with the call he made on Jema, I’m not gonna lie, at game point.”
At 5-6, the Lady Falcons no longer have their Final Four fate in their hands, which irritates Padda.
“And now by losing to Ateneo not only do we need to win every game but we also put our berth into the Final Four as dependent on other teams now,” Padda lamented. “It’s dependent on who NU loses to, if they lose. It’s dependent if FEU loses, I mean we have to depend on other teams to make mistakes. It a little unsettling. It’s not a good feeling to go into the rest of the season like that but it is what it is. We’re not trying to dwell on it for too long.
“We got to bawi quickly and get ready for FEU.”
