To help in the growth of local volleyball players, National University, the UAAP Season 80 Juniors Volleyball host, and Sports Vision, the organizers of the Premier Volleyball League, formed a partnership to host the Girls and Boys tournament of the UAAP.
The announcement was made Saturday afternoon.
“I would like to take this opportunity to thank Sports Vision for offering to help us in the development of High School Volleyball, particularly the UAAP. The offer was hard to resist because they want us to elevate the competition in the UAAP,” said NU Athletics Director Chito Loyzaga about the partnership.
“Gusto nilang bigyan yung young and promising future of Philipping Volleyball a venue where they can perform at their very best.”
With this vision, the PVL offered to share their game dates and venues to the UAAP.
“High school tournaments in volleyball are played in school gyms. To me, our thinking is, the high school players should be given the opportunity to play a venue were in conditions that can make them play better,” shared Sports Vision president Muying Martelino as games for the past six years were played in Adamson Gym and UE Caloocan and Recto. “How can you expect players to play well if they are not playing in a taraflex court and an air-conditioned venue? If you want them to play well, give them the chance to play in a good venue. I offered to Chito this.
“We want to develop great volleyball players. To develop great players, we have to give them a good venue.”
In this set-up, the men’s division of the on-going Collegiate Conference will be played at 8:00am and 10:00am. This will then be followed by two Juniors games before capping the day with the two women’s division games. Moreover, the games will have one ticket for the fans to enjoy a whole day of volleyball.
“So we have made the schedules and talked to all the universities that there will be game days that will be simultaneous during the games of the PVL. But we will also have game days where we will only have all-UAAP games,” furthered Loyzaga.
Though this is not the most ideal of plans, it is a step forward to help in the grassroots program of Philippine Volleyball.
“This is a first. Yung pinakamahirap lagi yung umpisa but we are looking forward to it. This may not be the best set-up but kailangan lang natin subukan,” said Loyzaga.
“We are looking forward to this pero sige lang, we have to move forward and offer something better to our student-athletes.”
The UAAP Season 80 Juniors Volleyball and 2017 PVL Collegiate Conference will share game days during Mondays and Saturdays starting September 9. The all-UAAP game days will be played every Sunday.
