Cignal HD Spikers.–MARLO CUETO/INQUIRER.net
Shaq delos Santos can now laugh about Cignal’s first loss in the current Premier Volleyball League All-Filipino Conference, a stunning straight-sets loss to Choco Mucho that halted the HD Spikers’ strong start.
“If you were shocked, we were also shocked,” Delos Santos jested in Filipino after Cignal returned to its winning ways with a dominating 25-7, 25-16, 25-16 win over Strong Group on Tuesday.
“But kidding aside … that loss is where we are coming from, especially myself. To be honest, I feel really bad that we did not deliver our [game] plan properly,” he added.
The Flying Titans did everything that it wanted to do in that match after limiting all the HD Spikers’ attackers to single digits while Sisi Rondina and Kat Tolentino powered Choco Mucho on the way to the sweep.
“We had problems in our attacks which had a bad percentage—and we wholly accepted that,” he said. “We needed to push more to improve our attacks.”
Vanie Gandler and Ces Molina did just that, producing much better results and finishing with 16 and 14 points, respectively, to bring Cignal back to its winning ways.
“We realized that we are still lacking in our practices and preparations … that was a wake-up call for us,” Delos Santos said. “We will work for it.”
Choco Mucho played so much better in all aspects, save for receptions, than last conference’s bronze medalists and it was evident on the stats sheet despite Cignal stepping on the court thinking that it had the tools to stop the Flying Titans on its track.
Lessons learned
But Delos Santos knows that they can pick up good things from that frustrating loss.
“We had a good game plan, but we are looking at the [bright] side—if we want to learn, the loss in that game was given to us so we can learn more. From there, we thought of the things that we can do [better],” he said.
Setter Gel Cayuna, despite being the only silver lining in that loss, also learned a valuable lesson as she and Delos Santos focused on her playmaking to solve their problem.
“That first thing I learned was to have courage inside the court because if someone gets lost in our team, the others follow so we need to have someone to fill in that gap,” Cayuna said. “We can’t push each other down, rather, we need to pull each other up.”
“Our days after that game have not been easy and Angel (Cayuna) especially knows that. Our training every day, the fatigue, we endured all of that and we won’t stop because we see good results,” Delos Santos said.
Cignal zeroed in on its target this conference as early as its first win. And even after that letdown, that aim hasn’t changed for the HD Spikers.
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“We need to help and get to know each other more to cover up what the others need. We will just help each other. We won’t stop until we reach our goal,” he added. INQ